FN 

56 

C5jei3 

Cod.    1 

"  Scudder--Childhood 

in  art  and  literature 


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HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN  AND  COMPANY 
Boston  and  New  Yokk 


CHILDHOOD 

IN    LITERATURE   AND   ART 


WITH  SOME   OBSERVATIONS   ON 
LITERATURE  FOR   CHILDREN 


a  ^tuo^ 


HORACE   E.    SCUDDER 


1 3ez.i 


BOSTON   AND    NEW   YORK 
HOUGHTON,   MIFFLIN    AND   COMPANY 


Copyright,  1894, 
By  HORACE  E.  SCUDDER 

All  rights  reserved. 


Th^  Riverside  Press,  Cambridge,  Mass.  U.  S.  A. 
Electrotyped  and  Printed  by  H.  O.  Houghton  &  Co. 


TO 

s-c  -s- 

WHO  WAS  A  CHILD  WHEN  THIS   BOOK 
WAS  WRITTEN 


CONTENTS 


I.  Introduction 3 

II.   In  Greek  and  Roman  Literature  .  .      (J 

III.  In  Hebrew  Life  and  Literature        .  39 

IV.  In  Early  Christianity       .        .        .  .53 
V.   In  Medieval  Art 81 

VI.   In  English  Literature  and  Art     .  .  104  ^ 

VII.  In  French  and  German  Literature  .  180 

Vni.    Hans  Christian  Andersen         .        .  .  201 

IX.   In  American  Literary  Art  .        .        .  217  ^^ 

Index 247 


CSS3 

CHILDHOOD    IN    LITERATURE 
AND  ART 


INTRODUCTION 

/3SX/ 
There  was  a  time,  just  beyond  the  mem- 
ory of  men  now  living,  when  the  Child  was 
born  in  literature.  At  the  same  period 
books  for  children  began  to  be  written. 
There  were  children,  indeed,  in  literature 
before  Wordsworth  created  Alice  Fell  and 
Lucy  Gray,  or  breathed  the  lines  beginning, 
{ 

^  "  She  was  a  phantom  of  delight," 


and  there  were  books  for  the  young  before 
Mr.  Day  wrote  Sandford  and  Merton; 
especially  is  it  to  be  noted  that  Goldsmith, 
who  was  an  avant-co^irier  of  Wordsworth, 
had  a  very  delightfid  perception  of  the 
child,  and  amused  himself  with  him  in  the 
Vicar  of  Wakefield,  while  he  or  his  double 
entertained  his  little  friends  in  real  life  with 
the  Renowned  History  of  Goody  Two  Shoes. 


4  CHILDHOOD  IN  LITERATURE 

Nevertheless,  there  has  been,  since  the  day 
of  Wordsworth,  such  a  succession  of  childish 
figures  in  prose  and  verse  that  we  are  jus- 
tified in  believing  childhood  to  have  been 
discovered  at  the  close  of  the  last  century. 
The  child  has  now  become  so  common  that 
we  scarcely  consider  how  absent  he  is  from 
the  earlier  literature.  Men  and  women  are 
there,  lovers,  maidens,  and  youth,  but  these 
are  all  with  us  still.  The  child  has  been 
added  to  the  dramatis  pei'sonoi  of  modern 
literature. 

There  is  a  correlation  between  childhood 
in  literature  and  a  literature  for  children, 
but  it  will  best  be  understood  when  one  has 
considered  the  meaning  of  the  appearance 
and  disappearance  of  the  child  in  diffei'ent 
epochs  of  literature  and  art ;  for  while  a 
hasty  survey  certainly  assures  one  that  the 
nineteenth  century  regards  childhood  far 
more  intently  than  any  previous  age,  it  is 
impossible  that  so  elemental  a  figure  as  the 
child  should  ever  have  been  wholly  lost  to 
sight.  A  comparison  of  literatures  with  ref- 
erence to  this  figure  may  disclose  some  of 
the  fundamental  differences  which  exist 
between  this  century  and  those  which  have 
preceded    it ;    it   may    also   disclose   a   still 


INTRODUCTION  5 

deeper  note  of  unity,  struck  by  the  essential 
spii-it  in  childhood  itself.  It  is  not  worth 
while  in  such  a  study  to  have  much  recourse 
to  the  minor  masters  ;  if  a  theme  so  ele- 
mental and  so  universal  in  its  relations  is 
not  to  be  illustrated  from  the  great  creative 
expositors  of  human  nature,  it  cannot  have 
the  importance  which  we  claim  for  it. 


n 

IN   GREEK   AND   ROMAN   LITERATURE 
1 

When  Dr.  Schliemaim  with  his  little 
shovel  uncovered  the  treasures  of  Mycenae 
and  Ilium,  a  good  many  timid  souls  rejoiced 
exceedingly  over  a  convincing  proof  of  the 
authenticity  of  the  Homeric  legends.  There 
always  will  be  those  who  find  the  proof  of 
a  spiritual  fact  in  some  corresponding  ma- 
terial fact;  who  wish  to  see  the  bones  of 
Agamemnon  before  they  are  quite  ready  to 
believe  in  the  Agamemnon  of  the  Iliad ;  to 
whom  the  Bible  is  not  true  until  its  truth 
has  been  confirmed  b}^  some  external  wit- 
ness. But  when  science  has  done  its  utmost, 
there  still  remains  in  a  work  of  art  a  certain 
testimony  to  truth,  which  may  be  illustrated 
by  science,  but  cannot  be  superseded  by  it./ 
Agamemnon  has  lived  all  these  years  in  the 
belief  of  men  without  the  aid  of  any  cups, 
or  saucers,  or  golden  vessels,  or  even  bones. 
Literature,  and    especially   imaginative   lit- 


IN  GREEK  LITERATURE  7 

erature,  is  the  exponent  of  the  life  of  a 
people,  and  we  must  still  go  to  it  for  our 
most  intimate  knowledge.  No  careful  anti- 
quarian research  can  reproduce  for  us  the 
women  of  early  Greece  as  Homer  has  set 
them  before  us  in  a  few  lines  in  his  pictures 
of  Helen  and  Penelope  and  Nausikaa, 
When,  therefore,  we  ask  ourselves  of  child- 
hood in  Greek  life,  we  may  reconstruct  it 
out  of  the  multitudinous  references  in  Greek 
literature  to  the  education  of  children,  to 
their  sports  and  games ;  and  it  is  no  very 
difficult  task  to  follow  the  child  from  birth 
through  the  nursery  to  the  time  when  it 
assumes  its  place  in  the  active  community : 
but  the  main  inquiries  must  still  be.  What 
pictures  have  we  of  childhood  ?  What  part 
does  the  child  play  in  that  drama  which  is 
set  before  us  in  a  microcosm  by  poets  and 
tragedians  ? 

The  actions  of  Homer's  heroes  are  spirit- 
ualized by  reflection.  That  is,  as  the  tree 
which  meets  the  eye  becomes  a  spiritual  tree 
when  one  sees  its  answering  image  in  the 
pool  which  it  overhangs,  so  those  likenesses 
which  Homer  sets  over  against  the  deeds  of 
his  heroes  release  the  souls  of  the  deeds,  and 
give  them  wings  for  a  flight  in  the  imagi- 


8  CHILDHOOD  IN  LITER ATUBE 

nation.  A  crowd  of  men  flock  to  the  as- 
sembly :  seen  in  the  bright  reflection  of 
Homer's  imagination,  they  are  a  swarm  of 
bees :  — 

"  Being  abroad,  the  earth  was  overlaid 
With    fleckers  to  them,  that  came  forth,  as  when  of 

frequent  bees 
Swarms  rise  out  of  a  hollow  rock,  repairing  the  degrees 
Of  their  egression  endlessly,  with  ever  rising  new 
From  forth  their  sweet  nest ;  as  their  store,  still  as  it 

faded,  grew, 
And  never  would  cease  sending  forth  her  clusters  to 

the  spring. 
They  still  crowd  out  so ;  this  flock  here,  that   there, 

belaboring 
The  loaded  flowers."  ^ 

So  Chapman,  in  his  Gothic  fasliion,  run- 
ning up  his  little  spires  and  pinnacles  upon 
the  building  which  he  has  raised  from  Ho- 
mer's material ;  but  the  idea  is  all  Homer's, 
and  Chapman's  "  repairing  the  degrees  of 
their  egression  endlessly,"  with  its  resonant 
hum,  is  hardly  more  intentionally  a  reflex 
of  sound  and  motion  than  Homer's  aid  veov 

ip)(Oix€vd<ov. 

We  look  again  at  Chapman's  way  of  ren- 
dering the  caressing   little   passage    in  the 
fourth   book   of  the   Iliad,   where    Homer, 
wishing  to  speak  of  the  ease  and  tenderness 
^  Chapman's  The  Iliads  of  Homer,  ii.  70-77. 


IN  GREEK  LITERATURE  9 

with  which  Athene  turns  aside  the  arrow 
shot  at  Menelaos,  calls  up  the  image  of  a 
mother  brushing  a  fly  from  the  face  of  her 
sleeping  child :  — 

"Stood  close   before,  and  slack'd  the  force  the   arrow 

did  confer 
With  as  much  care  and  little  hurt  as  doth  a  mother 

use, 
And  keep  ofp  from  her  babe,  when  sleep  doth  through 

his  powers  diffuse 
His  golden  humor,  and  th'  assaults  of  rude  and  busy 

flies 
She  still  checks  with  her  careful  hand."  ^ 

Here  the  Englishman  has  caught  the 
notion  of  ease,  and  emphasized  that ;  yet 
he  has  missed  the  tenderness,  and  all  bo- 
cause  he  was  not  content  to  accept  the  sim- 
ple image,  but  must  needs  refract  it  into 
"assaults  of  rude  and  busy  flies."  Better 
is  the  rendering  of  the  picturesque  figure  in 
which  Ajax,  beset  by  the  Trojans,  is  likened 
to  an  ass  belabored  by  a  pack  of  boys  :  — 

"  As  when  a  dull  mill  ass  comes  near  a  goodly  field  of 

com. 
Kept  from  the  birds  by  children's  cries,  the  boys  are 

overborne 
By  his  insensible  approach,  and  simply  he  will  eat 
About   whom   many  wands  are    broke,   and   stiU   the 

children  beat, 

1  mads,  iv.  147-151. 


10  CHILDHOOD  IN  LITERATURE 

And  still  the  self-providing  ass  doth  with  their  weak- 
ness bear, 

Not  stirring  till  his  paunch  be  full,  and  scarcely  then 
will  steer,"  ^ 

Apollo,  sweeping  away  the  rampart  of  the 
Greeks,  does  it  as  easily  as  a  boy,  who  has 
heaped  a  pile  of  sand  upon  the  seashore 
in  childish  sport,  in  sport  razes  it  with  feet 
and  hands.  Achilles  half  pities,  half  chides, 
the  imploring,  weeping  Patroclos,  when  he 
says,  — 

"  Wherefore  weeps  my  friend 
So  like  a  girl,  who,  though  she  sees  her  mother  cannot 

tend 
Her  childish   humors,  hangs  on  her,   and  would  be 

taken  up. 
Still  viewing  her  with  tear-drowned  eyes,  when  she 

has  made  her  stoop."  ^ 

Chapman's  "hangs  on  her"  is  hardly  so 
particular  as  Homer's  elavov  airToixevrj,  plucks 
at  her  gown;  and  he  has  quite  missed  the 
picture  offered  by  the  poet,  who  makes  the 
child,  as  soon  as  she  discovers  her  mother, 
beg  to  be  taken  up,  and  insistently  stop  her 
as  she  goes  by  on  some  errand.  Here  again 
the  naive  domestic  scene  in  Homer  is 
charged  in  Chapman  with  a  certain  half- 
tragic  meaning. 

This,  we  think,  completes  the  short  cata- 
1  Iliads,  xvi.  5-8.  2  j^j^,  ^i.  485-490. 


IN  GREEK  LITERATURE  11 

logue  of  Homer's  indirect  reference  to  child- 
hood, and  the  comparison  with  the  Eliza- 
bethan poet's  use  of  the  same  forms  brings 
out  more  distinctly  the  sweet  simplicity  and 
native  dignity  of  the  Greek.  When  child- 
hood is  thus  referred  to  by  Homer,  it  is  used 
with  no  condescension,  and  with  no  thought 
of  investing  it  with  any  adventitious  prop- 
erty. It  is  a  part  of  nature,  as  the  bees  are 
a  part  of  nature ;  and  when  Achilles  likens 
his  friend  in  his  tears  to  a  little  girl  wishing 
to  be  taken  up  by  her  mother,  he  is  not 
taunting  him  with  being  a  "  cry-baby." 

Leaving  the  indirect  references,  one  re- 
calls immediately  the  single  picture  of  child- 
hood which  stands  among  the  heroic  scenes 
of  the  Iliad.  When  Hector  has  his  mem- 
orable parting  with  Andi'omache,  as  re- 
lated in  the  sixth  book  of  the  Iliad,  the 
child  Astyanax  is  present  in  the  nurse's 
arms.  Here  Chapman  is  so  careless  that 
we  desert  him,  and  fall  back  on  a  simple 
rendering  into  prose  of  the  passage  relating 
to  the  child  :  — 

"  With  this,  famous  Hector  reached  forth 
to  take  his  boy,  but  back  into  the  bosom  of 
his  fair-girded  nurse  the  boy  shrank  with 
a  cry,  frightened  at  the  sight   of  his   dear 


12  CHILDHOOD  IN  LITERATURE 

father ;  for  he  was  afraid  of  the  brass,  — • 
yes,  and  of  the  plume  made  of  a  horse's 
mane,  when  he  saw  it  nodding  dreadfully  at 
the  helmet's  peak.  Then  out  laughed  his 
dear  father  and  his  noble  mother.  Quick 
from  his  head  famous  Hector  took  the  hel- 
met and  laid  it  on  the  ground,  where  it 
shone.  Then  he  kissed  his  dear  son  and 
tossed  him  in  the  air,  and  thus  he  prayed 
to  Zeus  and  all  the  gods.  .  .  .  These  were 
his  words,  and  so  he  placed  the  boy,  his 
boy,  in  the  hands  of  his  dear  wife;  and 
she  received  him  into  her  odorous  bosom, 
smiling  through  her  tears.  Her  husband 
had  compassion  on  her  when  he  saw  it,  and 
stroked  her  with  his  hand,  spoke  to  her,  and 
called  her  by  her  name."  ^ 

Like  so  many  other  passages  in  Ho- 
mer, this  at  once  offers  themes  for  sculp- 
ture. Flaxman  was  right  when  he  presented 
his  series  of  illustrations  to  the  Iliad  and 
Odyssey  in  outline,  and  gave  a  statuesque 
character  to  the  groups,  though  his  inter- 
pretation of  this  special  scene  is  common- 
place. There  is  an  elemental  property 
about  the  life  exhibited  in  Homer  which 
the  firm  boundaries  of  sculpture  most  fitly 
1  Eiad,  vi.  466-475,  482-485. 


IN  GREEK  LITERATURE  13 

inclose.  Thus  childhood,  in  this  passage,  is 
characterized  by  an  entirely  simple  emotion, 
—  the  sudden  fear  of  an  infant  at  the  sight 
of  his  father's  shining  helmet  and  frowning 
plume ;  while  the  relation  of  maturity  to 
childhood  is  presented  in  the  strong  man's 
concession  to  weakness,  as  he  laughs  and 
lays  aside  his  helmet,  and  then  catches  and 
tosses  the  child. 

It  is  somewhat  perilous  to  comment  upon 
Homer.  The  appeal  in  his  poetry  is  so  di- 
rect to  universal  feeling,  and  so  free  from  the 
entanglements  of  a  too  refined  sensibility, 
that  the  moment  one  begins  to  enlarge  upon 
the  sentiment  in  his  epic  one  is  in  dan- 
ger of  importing  into  it  subtleties  which 
would  have  been  incomprehensible  to  Homer. 
There  is  preserved,  especially  in  the  Iliad, 
the  picture  of  a  society  which  is  physically 
developed,  but  intellectually  unrefined.  The 
men  weep  like  children  when  they  cannot 
have  what  they  want,  and  the  passions  which 
stir  life  are  those  which  lie  nearest  the  phy- 
sical forms  of  expression.  When  we  come 
thus  upon  this  picture  of  Hector's  parting 
with  Andromache,  we  are  impressed  chiefly 
with  the  fact  that  it  is  human  life  in  outline. 
Here  are  great  facts  of  human  experience, 


14  CHILDHOOD  IN  LITERATURE 

and  they  are  so  told  that  not  one  of  them 
requires  a  word  of  explanation  to  make  it 
intelligible  to  a  child.  The  child,  we  are 
reminded  in  a  later  philosophy,  is  father  of 
the  man,  and  Astyanax  is  a  miniature  Hec- 
tor ;  for  we  have  only  to  go  forward  a  few 
pages  to  find  Hector,  when  brought  face 
to  face  with  Ajax,  confessing  to  a  terrible 
thumping  of  fear  in  his  breast. 

There  is  one  figure  in  early  Greek  domes- 
tic life  which  has  frequent  recognition  in  lit- 
erature. It  helps  in  our  study  of  this  sub- 
ject to  find  the  nurse  so  conspicuous ;  in  the 
passage  last  quoted  she  is  given  an  epithet 
which  is  reserved  for  goddesses  and  noble 
women.  The  definite  regard  paid  to  one  so 
identified  with  childhood  is  in  accord  with 
the  open  acceptance  of  the  physical  aspect 
of  human  nature  which  is  at  the  basis  of  the 
Homeric  poems.  The  frankness  with  which 
the  elemental  conditions  of  life  are  made  to 
serve  the  poet's  purpose,  so  that  eating  and 
drinking,  sleeping  and  fighting,  weeping  and 
laughing,  rimning  and  dancing,  are  familiar 
incidents  of  the  poem,  finds  a  place  for  the 
nurse  and  the  house-dog.  Few  incidents  in 
the  Odyssey  are  better  remembered  by  its 
readers  than  the  recognition  of  the  travel- 


IN  GREEK  LITERATURE  15 

worn  Odysseus  by  the  old  watch-dog,  and 
by  the  nurse  who  washes  the  hero's  feet  and 
discovers  the  scar  of  the  wound  made  by  the 
boar's  tusk  when  the  man  before  her  was  a 
youth. 

The  child,  in  the  Homeric  conception,  was 
a  little  human  creature  iminvested  with  any 
mystery,  a  part  of  that  society  which  had  it- 
self scarcely  passed  beyond  the  bounds  of 
childhood.  As  the  horizon  which  limited 
early  Greece  was  a  narrow  one,  and  the 
world  in  which  the  heroes  moved  was  sur- 
rounded by  a  vast  teri^a  incognita,  so  hu- 
man life,  in  its  Homeric  acceptance,  wae  one 
of  simple  forms ;  that  which  lay  beyond  tan- 
gible and  visible  experience  was  rarely  vis- 
ited, and  was  peopled  with  shapes  which 
brought  a  childish  fright.)  There  was,  in  a 
word,  nothing  in  the  development  of  man's 
nature,  as  recorded  by  Homer,  which  would 
make  him  look  with  questioning  toward  his 
child.  He  regarded  the  world  about  him 
with  scarcely  more  mature  thought  than  did 
the  infant  whom  he  tossed  in  the  air,  and, 
until  life  should  be  apprehended  in  its  more 
complex  relations,  he  was  not  likely  to  see 
in  his  child  anything  more  than  an  epitome 
of   his  own  little  round.     The  contrast  be- 


16  CHILDHOOD  IN  LITERATURE 

tween  childhood  and  manhood  was  too  faint 
to  serve  much  of  a  purpose  in  art. 

The  difference  between  Homer  and  the 
tragedians  is  at  once  perceived  to  be  the 
difference  between  a  boy's  thought  and  a 
man's  thought.  The  colonial  growth,  the 
Persian  war,  the  political  development,  the 
commerce  with  other  peoples,  were  witnesses 
to  a  more  complex  life  and  the  quick  causes 
of  a  profounder  apprehension  of  human 
existence.  It  happens  that  we  have  in  the 
CEdipus  Tyrannus  of  Sophocles  an  incident 
wliich  offers  a  suggestive  comparison  with 
the  simple  picture  of  the  parting  of  Hector 
and  Andromache.  In  the  earlier  poem,  the 
hero,  expecting  the  fortunes  of  war,  disdains 
all  suggestions  of  prudence,  and  speaks  as  a 
brave  man  must,  who  sets  honor  above  ease, 
and  counts  the  cost  of  sacrifice  only  to  stir 
himself  to  greater  courage  and  resolution. 
He  asks  that  his  child  may  take  his  j)lace  in 
time,  and  he  dries  his  wife's  tears  with  the 
simple  words  that  no  man  can  separate  him 
from  her,  that  fate  alone  can  intervene ;  in 
Chapman's  nervous  rendering  :  — 

"  Afflict  me  not,  dear  wife, 
With  these   vain  griefs.     He  doth  not  live  that  can 
disjoin  my  life 


IN  GREEK  LITERATURE  17 

And  this  firm  bosom  but  my  fate ;  and   fate,  whose 

wings  can  fly  ? 
Noble,    ignoble,   fate   controls.     Once   bom,   the  best 

mnst  die." 

Here,  the  impending  disaster  to  Troy, 
with  the  inclusion  of  Hector's  fortune, 
appears  as  one  fact  out  of  many,  an  incident 
in  life,  bringing  other  incidents  in  its  train, 
yet  scarcely  more  ethical  in  its  relations 
than  if  it  followed  from  the  throw  of  dice. 
In  the  CEdipus,  when  the  king,  overwhelmed 
by  his  fate,  in  the  supreme  hour  of  his 
anguish  takes  vengeance  upon  his  eyes,  there 
follows  a  passage  of  surpassing  pathos.  To 
the  mad  violence  has  succeeded  a  moment  of 
tender  grief,  and  the  unhappy  CEdipus 
stretches  out  his  arms  for  his  children,  that 
he  may  bid  them  farewell.  His  own  terrible 
fate  is  dimmed  in  his  thought  by  the  suffer- 
ing which  the  inevitable  curse  of  the  house 
is  to  bring  into  their  lives.  He  reflects  ;  he 
dismisses  his  sons,  —  they,  at  least,  can 
fiffht  their  battles  in  the  world ;  he  turns  to 
his  defenseless  little  daughters,  and  pours 
out  for  them  the  tears  of  a  stricken  father. 
The  not-to-be-questioned  fate  of  Homer,  an 
inexplicable  incident  of  life,  which  men 
must  set  aside  from  calculation  and  thought 


18  CHILDHOOD  IN  LITERATURE 

because  it  is  inexplicable,  has  become  in 
Sophocles  a  terrible  mystery,  connecting 
itself  with  man's  conduct,  even  when  that  is 
unwittingly  in  violation  of  divine  decree,  and 
following  him  with  such  unrelenting  vigi- 
lance that  death  cannot  be  counted  the  end 
of  perilous  life.  The  child,  in  the  supreme 
moment  of  Hector's  destiny,  is  to  him  the 
restoration  of  order,  the  replacement  of  his 
loss ;  the  children,  in  the  supreme  moment 
of  the  destiny  of  CEdipus,  are  to  him  only 
the  means  of  prolonging  and  rendering  more 
murky  the  darkness  which  has  fallen  upon 
him.  Hector,  looking  upon  Astyanax,  sees 
the  world  rolling  on,  sunlight  chasing 
shadow,  repeating  the  life  he  has  known ; 
CEdipus,  looking  upon  Antigone  and  Ismene, 
sees  new  disclosures  of  the  possibilities  of 
a  dread  power  under  which  the  world  is 
abiding. 

In  taking  one  step  more  from  Sophocles 
to  Euripides,  there  is  food  for  thought  in  a 
new  treatment  of  childhood.  Whatever  view 
one  may  choose  to  take  of  Euripides  and  his 
art  in  its  relation  to  the  heroic  tragedy,  there 
can  be  no  question  as  to  the  nearness  in 
which  Euripides  stands  to  the  characters 
of  his  dramas,  and  this  nearness  is  shown 


IN  GREEK  LITERATURE  19 

in  nothing  more  than  in  the  use  which  he 
makes  of  domestic  life.  With  him,  children 
are  the  necessary  illustrations  of  humanity. 
Thus,  in  the  Medea,  when  Medea  is  plead- 
ing with  Creon  for  a  respite  of  a  day  only 
from  banishment,  the  argument  which  pre- 
vails is  that  which  rests  on  pity  for  her 
little  ones,  and  in  the  very  centre  of  Me- 
dea's vengeance  is  that  passion  for  her  chil- 
dren which  bids  her  slay  them  rather  than 
leave  them 

"  Among  their  unfriends,  to  be  trampled  on." 

Again,  in  Alkestis,  the  last  words  of  the 
heroine  before  she  goes  to  her  sacrifice  are 
a  demand  of  Admetus  that  the  integrity  of 
their  home  shall  be  preserved,  and  no  step- 
dame  take  her  place  with  the  children. 
Both  Alkestis  and  Admetus,  in  that  wonder- 
ful scene,  are  imaged  to  the  eye  as  part  of  a 
group,  and,  though  the  children  themselves 
do  not  speak,  the  words  and  the  very  ges- 
tures are  directed  toward  them. 

Alkestis.     My  children,  ye  have   heard  your  father's 
pledge 
Never  to  set  a  step-dame  over  you, 
Or  tlirust  me  from  the  allegiance  of  his  heart. 

Admetus.     Wliat  now  I  say  shall  never  be  unsaid. 

Alkestis.     Then  here  our  children  I  entrust  to  thee. 


20 


CHILDHOOD  IN  LITERATURE 


Admetus. 
Alkestis. 
Admetus. 
lost. 
Alkestis. 
Admetus. 
Alkestis. 


And  I  receive  them  as  the  gage  of  love. 
Be  thou  a  mother  to  them  in  my  place. 
Need  were,  vrhen  such  a  mother  has  been 


Children,  I  leave  you  when  I  fain  would  live. 
Alas  !  what  shall  I  do,  bereft  of  thee? 
Time  will  assuage  thy  grief :  the  dead  are 
nought. 
Admetus.     Take,  take  me  with  thee  to  the  underworld. 
It  is  enough  that  I  must  die  for  thee. 
O  Heaven  !  of  what  a  partner  I  am  reft ! 
My  eyes  grow  dim  and  the  long  sleep  comes 


Alkestis. 
Admetus. 
Alkestis. 
on. 
Admetus. 
Alkestis. 
Admetus. 
Alkestis. 
Admetus. 
Alkestis. 
Admetus. 
Alkestis. 
Admetus. 
Chorus. 


I  too  am  lost  if  thou  dost  leave  me,  wife. 
Think  of  me  as  of  one  that  is  no  more. 
Lift  up  thy  face,  quit  not  thy  children  dear. 
Not  willingly  ;  but,  children,  fare  ye  well. 
Oh,  look  upon  them,  look ! 

My  end  is  come. 
Oh,  leave  us  not. 

Farewell. 

I  am  undone. 
Gone,  gone ;  thy  wife,  Admetus,  is  no  more.^ 

A  fragment  of  Danae  puts  into  the  mouth 
of  Danae  herself  apparently  lines  which  send 
one  naturally  to  Simonides  :  — 

"  He,  leaping  to  my  arms  and  in  my  bosom, 
Might  haply  sport,  and  with  a  crowd  of  kisses 
Might  win  my  soul  forth  ;  for  there  is  no  greater 
Love-charm  than  close  companionship,  my  father."  ^ 

It  cannot  have  escaped  notice  how  large  a 

1  Goldwin  Smith's  translation. 

^  John  Addington  Symonds's  translation. 


IN  GREEK  LITERATURE  21 

part  is  played  by  children  in  the  spectacular 
appointments  of  the  Greek  drama.  Those 
symbolic  processions,  those  groups  of  human 
life,  those  scenes  of  human  passion,  are  ren- 
dered more  complete  by  the  silent  presence 
of  children.  They  serve  in  the  temples; 
their  eyes  are  quick  to  catch  the  coming 
of  the  messenger ;  they  sujffer  dumbly  in  the 
fate  that  pulls  down  royal  houses  and  top- 
ples the  pillars  of  ancestral  palaces.  It 
was  impossible  that  it  should  be  otherwise. 
The  Greek  mind,  which  found  expression  in 
tragic  art,  was  oppressed  by  the  problems, 
not  alone  of  individual  fate,  but  of  the  subtle 
relations  of  human  life.  The  serpents  wind- 
ing about  Laokobn  entwined  in  their  folds 
the  shrinking  youths,  and  the  father's  an- 
guish was  for  the  destiny  which  would  not 
let  him  sufPer  alone.  Yet  there  is  scarcely 
a  child's  voice  to  be  heard  in  the  whole 
range  of  Greek  poetic  art.  The  conception 
is  universally  of  the  child,  not  as  acting,  far 
less  as  speaking,  but  as  a  passive  member  of 
the  social  order.  It  is  not  its  individual  life 
so  much  as  its  related  life  which  is  contem- 
plated. 

We   are  related  to  the  Greeks  not  only 
through  the  higher  forms  of  literature,  but 


22         CHILDHOOD  IN  LITERATURE 

through  the  political  thought  which  had 
with  them  both  historical  development  and 
speculative  representation.  It  comes  thus 
within  the  range  of  our  inquiry  to  ask  what 
recognition  of  childhood  there  was  in  writ- 
ings which  sought  to  give  an  artistic  form 
to  political  thought.  There  is  a  frequent 
recurrence  by  Plato  to  the  subject  of  child- 
hood in  the  state,  and  we  may  see  in  his 
presentation  not  only  the  germinal  relation 
which  childhood  bears,  so  that  education  be- 
comes necessarily  one  of  the  significant  func- 
tions of  government,  but  also  what  may  not 
unfairly  be  called  a  reflection  of  divinity. 

The  education  which  in  the  ideal  state  is 
to  be  given  to  children  is  represented  by 
him,  indeed,  as  the  evolution  from  the  sensa- 
tions of  pleasure  and  pain  to  the  perception 
of  virtue  and  vice.  "Pleasure  and  pain," 
he  says,^  "I  maintain  to  be  the  first  per- 
ceptions of  children,  and  I  say  that  they  are 
the  forms  under  which  virtue  and  vice  are 
originally  present  to  them.  As  to  wisdom 
and  true  and  fixed  opinions,  happy  is  the 
man  who  acquires  them,  even  when  declin- 
ing  in  years;  and  he  who  possesses  them, 

^  Laws,  ii.  653.     In  this  and  subsequent  passages  Jow- 
ett's  translation  is  used. 


IN  GREEK  LITERATURE  23 

and  the  blessings  which  are  contained  in 
them,  is  a  perfect  man.  Now  I  mean  by 
education  that  training  which  is  given  by 
suitable  habits  to  the  first  instincts  of  virtue 
in  children ;  when  pleasure  and  friendship 
and  pain  and  hatred  are  rightly  implanted 
in  soids  not  yet  capable  of  understanding 
the  nature  of  them,  and  who  find  them, 
after  they  have  attained  reason,  to  be  in 
harmony  with  her.  This  harmony  of  the 
soul,  when  perfected,  is  virtue;  but  the 
particular  training  in  respect  of  pleasure 
and  pain  which  leads  you  always  to  hate 
what  you  ought  to  hate,  and  love  what  you 
ought  to  love,  from  the  beginning  to  the 
end,  may  be  separated  off,  and,  in  my  view, 
will  be  rightly  called  education." 

In  the  Kepublic,  Plato  theorizes  at  great 
length  upon  a  possible  selection  and  train- 
ing of  children,  which  rests  for  its  basis 
upon  a  too  pronounced  physical  assumption, 
so  that  one  in  reading  certain  passages  might 
easily  fancy  that  he  was  considering  the 
production  of  a  superior  breed  of  colts,  and 
that  the  soul  was  the  product  of  material 
forces  only ;  but  the  fifth  book,  which  con- 
tains these  audacious  speciUations,  may  fairly 
be  taken  in  the  spirit  in  which  Proudhon  is 


24  CHILDHOOD  IN  LITERATURE 

said  to  have  thrown  out  some  of  his  extrava- 
gant assertions,  —  he  expected  to  be  beaten 
down  in  his  price. 

There  are  other  passages,  especially  in 
the  Laws,  in  reading  which  one  is  struck  by 
a  certain  reverence  for  childhood,  as  that 
interesting  one  where  caution  is  given 
against  disturbing  the  uniformity  of  chil- 
dren's plays  on  account  of  their  connection 
with  the  life  of  the  state.  The  modern 
theories  of  the  Kindergarten  find  a  notable 
support  in  Plato's  reasoning :  "I  say  that 
in  states  generally  no  one  has  observed  that 
the  plays  of  childhood  have  a  great  deal  to 
do  with  the  permanence  or  want  of  perma- 
nence in  legislation.  For  when  plays  are 
ordered  with  a  view  to  children  having  the 
same  plays  and  amusing  themselves  after 
the  same  manner  and  finding  delight  in  the 
same  playthings,  the  more  solemn  institu- 
tions of  the  state  are  allowed  to  remain  un- 
disturbed. Whereas,  if  sports  are  disturbed 
and  innovations  are  made  in  them,  and  they 
constantly  change,  and  the  young  never 
speak  of  their  having  the  same  likings  or 
the  same  established  notions  of  good  and 
bad  taste,  either  in  the  bearing  of  their 
bodies  or  in  their  dress,  but  he  who  devises 


IN  GREEK  LITERATURE  25 

something  new  and  out  of  the  way  in  figures 
and  colors  and  the  like  is  held  in  special 
honor,  we  may  truly  say  that  no  greater  evil 
can  happen  in  a  state  ;  for  he  who  changes 
the  sports  is  secretly  changing  the  manners 
of  the  young,  and  making  the  old  to  be  dis- 
honored among  them,  and  the  new  to  be 
honored.  And  I  affirm  that  there  is  no- 
thing which  is  a  greater  injury  to  all  states 
than  saying  or  thinking  thus."  ^ 

It  is,  however,  most  germane  to  our  pur- 
pose to  cite  a  striking  passage  from  the 
Laws,  in  which  Plato  most  distinctly  recog- 
nizes the  power  resident  in  childhood  to  as- 
similate the  purest  expression  of  truth.  The 
Athenian,  in  the  dialogue,  is  speaking,  and 
says :  "  The  next  suggestion  which  I  have 
to  offer  is  that  all  our  three  choruses  [that 
is,  choruses  representing  the  three  epochs 
of  life]  shall  sing  to  the  yoimg  and  tender 
souls  of  children,  reciting  in  their  strains  all 
the  noble  thoughts  of  which  we  have  already 
spoken,  or  are  about  to  speak ;  and  the  sum 
of  them  shall  be  that  the  life  which  is  by  the 
gods  deemed  to  be  the  happiest  is  the  holiest, 
and  we  shall  affirm  this  to  be  a  most  certain 
truth ;  and  the  minds  of  our  young  disciples 
1  Laws,  vii  797. 


26  CHILDHOOD  IN  LITERATURE 

will  be  more  likely  to  receive  these  words  of 
ours  than  any  others  which  we  might  ad- 
dress to  them.  .  .  . 

"  First  will  enter,  in  their  natural  order, 
the  sacred  choir,  composed  of  children,  which 
is  to  sing  lustily  the  heaven-taught  lay  to  the 
whole  city.  Next  will  follow  the  chorus  of 
young  men  under  the  age  of  thirty,  who  will 
call  upon  the  God  Paean  to  testify  to  the 
truth  of  their  words,  and  will  pray  to  him  to 
be  gracious  to  the  youth  and  to  turn  their 
hearts.  Thirdly,  the  choir  of  elder  men,  who 
are  from  thirty  to  sixty  years  of  age,  will 
also  sing.  There  remain  those  who  are  too 
old  to  sing,  and  they  will  tell  stories  illus- 
trating the  same  virtues,  as  with  the  voice 
of  an  oracle."  ^ 

Plato  used  human  society  as  material  from 
which  to  construct  an  organization  artisti- 
cally perfect  and  representing  political  order, 
just  as  Pheidias  or  Praxiteles  used  clay  as 
a  material  from  which  to  construct  the  hu- 
man being  artistically  perfect  and  represent- 
ing the  soul  of  man.  With  this  fine  organ- 
ism of  the  ideal  state  Plato  incorporated  his 
conception  of  childhood  in  its  two  relations 
of  singing  and  being  sung  to.  He  thought 
^  Laws,  ii.  664. 


IN  GREEK  LITERATURE  27 

of  the  child  as  a  member  of  the  three-fold 
chorus  of  life :  and  when  he  set  these  choirs 
hymning  the  divine  strain,  he  made  the  re- 
cipients of  the  revelation  to  be  themselves 
children,  the  forming  elements  of  the  grow- 
ing, organic  state.  Certainly  it  is  a  wide  arc 
which  is  spanned  by  these  three  great  repre- 
sentatives of  Greek  art,  and  in  passing  from 
Homer  to  Sophocles,  and  from  Sophocles  to 
Plato,  we  are  not  merely  considering  the 
epic,  the  tragic,  and  the  philosophic  treat- 
ment of  childhood  in  literature  ;  we  are  dis- 
covering the  development  of  the  conception 
of  childhood  in  a  nation  which  has  commu- 
nicated to  history  the  eidolon  of  the  fairest 
humanity.  It  is  scarcely  too  much  to  speak 
of  it  as  the  evolution  of  a  soul,  and  to  find, 
as  one  so  often  finds  in  his  study  of  Greece, 
the  outline  of  the  course  of  the  world's 
thought. 

The  old,  formal  view  of  antiquity,  which 
once  placed  Grecian  life  almost  beyond  the 
pale  of  our  human  sympathy,  and  made 
the  men  and  women  cold  marble  figures 
in  our  imagination,  has  given  place  to  a 
warmer  regard.  Through  literary  reproduc- 
tion, which  paraphrases  Greek  life  in  the 
dramatic  art  of   Browning  and  Fitzgerald, 


28  CHILDHOOD  IN  LITERATURE 

gives  us  Spencerian  versions  of  Homer,  or, 
better  still,  the  healthy  childlike  recital  in 
Mr.  Palmer's  version  of  the  Odyssey,  and 
enables  us  to  sit  down  after  dinner  with 
Plato,  Mr.  Jowett  being  an  idiomatic  inter- 
preter ;  through  the  discoveries  of  Schlie- 
mann  and  others,  by  which  the  mythic  and 
heroic  ages  of  Greece  are  made  almost 
grotesquely  familiar,  —  we  are  coming  to 
read  Grecian  history,  in  Niebuhr's  felicitous 
phrase,  as  if  it  really  happened,  and  to  lay 
aside  our  artificial  and  distant  ways  of  be- 
coming familiar  with  Greek  life.  Yet  the 
means  which  have  led  to  this  modern  atti- 
tude toward  classic  antiquity  are  themselves 
the  product  of  modern  life ;  the  secrets  of 
Greek  life  are  more  open  to  us  now  because 
our  own  life  has  become  freer,  more  hospi- 
table, and  more  catholic.  It  is  a  delight  to 
us  to  turn  from  the  marble  of  Pheidias  to 
the  terra  cotta  of  the  unknown  modelers  of 
the  Tanagra  figurines,  while  these  homelike, 
domestic  images  serve  as  interpreters,  also, 
of  the  larger,  nobler  designs.  So  we  have 
recourse  to  those  fragments  of  the  Greek 
Anthology  which  give  us  glimpses  of  Greek 
interiors,  and  by  means  of  them  we  find  a 
side-light  thrown  upon  the  more  majestic 
expressions  of  poetic  and  dramatic  art. 


IN  GREEK  LITERATURE  29 

Tlie  Anthology  gathers  for  us  the  epi- 
grams, epitaphs,  proverbs,  fables,  and  little 
odds  and  ends  which  have  been  saved  from 
the  ruins  of  literature,  and  in  turning  its 
leaves  one  is  impressed  by  the  large  number 
of  references  to  childhood.  It  is  as  when, 
rambling  through  the  streets  of  the  uncov- 
ered Pompeii,  one  comes  upon  the  playthings 
of  children  dead  nigh  two  thousand  years. 
Here  are  tender  memorials  of  lost  babes  in 
inscriptions  upon  forgotten  tombs,  and  la.- 
ments  of  fathers  and  mothers  for  the  dark- 
ness which  has  come  upon  their  dwellings. 
We  seem  to  hear  the  prattle  of  infancy  and 
the  mother's  lullaby.  The  Greeks,  as  we, 
covered  their  loss  with  an  instinctive  trust  in 
some  better  fortune  in  store  for  the  child, 
and  hushed  their  skepticism  with  the  song 
of  hope  and  the  remembrance  of  stories 
which  they  had  come  in  colder  hours  to  dis- 
believe. Here,  for  example,  is  an  anonymous 
elegy :  — 

"  Thou  hast  not,  O  rider  Pluto,  with  pious 
intent,  stolen  for  thy  underground  world  a 
girl  of  five  years,  admired  by  all.  For  thou 
hast  cut,  as  it  were,  from  the  root,  a  sweet- 
scented  rose  in  the  season  of  a  commeneinof 
spring,  before  it  had   completed  its  proper 


30         CHILDHOOD  IN  LITERATURE 

time.  But  come,  Alexander  and  Philtatus  ; 
do  not  any  longer  weep  and  pour  forth  lam- 
entations for  the  regretted  girl.  For  she 
had,  yes,  she  had  a  rosy  face  which  meant 
that  she  should  remain  in  the  immortal  dwell- 
ings of  the  sky.  Trust,  then,  to  stories  of 
old.  For  it  was  not  Death,  but  the  Naiads, 
who  stole  the  good  girl  as  once  they  stole 
Hylas."  1 

Perhaps  the  most  celebrated  of  these  ten- 
der domestic  passages  is  to  be  found  in  the 
oft -quoted  lines  from  Simonides,  where 
Danae  sings  over  the  boy  Perseus :  — 

"  When  in  the  ark  of  curious  workmanship 
The  winds  and  swaying  waters  fearfully 
Were  rocking  her,  with  streaming  eyes,  around 
Her  boy  the  mother  threw  her  arms  and  said : 

"  '  O  darling,  I  am  very  miserable  ; 
But  thou  art  cosy-warm  and  sound  asleep 
In  this  thy  dull,  close-cabin'd  prison-house, 
Stretched  at  full  ease  in  the  dark,  ebon  gloom. 
Over  thy  head  of  long  and  tangled  hair 
The  wave  is  rolling  ;  but  thou  heedest  not ; 
Nor  heedest  thou  the  noises  of  the  winds, 
Wrapt  in  thy  purple  cloak,  sweet  pretty  one. 

" '  But  if  this  fearful  place  had  fear  for  thee, 
Those  little  ears  would  listen  to  my  words ; 
But  sleep  on,  baby,  and  let  the  sea-waves  sleep, 

1  Epigrammata  Despota,  DGCXI. 


IN  ROMAN  LITERATURE  31 

And  sleep  our  own  immeasurable  woes. 

O  father  Zens,  I  pray  some  change  may  come  ; 

But,  father,  if  my  words  are  over-bold, 

Have  pity,  and  for  the  child's  sake  pardon  me.'  "  ^ 


II 

As  before  we  stopped  in  front  of  the 
charming  group  which  Homer  gives  us  in 
the  parting  of  Hector  and  Andromache, 
with  the  child  Astyanax  set  in  the  midst,  so 
in  taking  the  poet  who  occupies  the  chief 
place  in  Latin  literature  we  find  a  significant 
contrast.  The  picture  of  ^neas  bearing 
upon  his  shoulders  the  aged  Anchises  and 
leading  by  the  hand  the  young  Ascanius  is 
a  distinct  Roman  picture.  The  two  poems 
move  through  somewhat  parallel  cycles,  and 
have  adventures  which  are  common  to  both ; 
but  the  figure  of  Odysseus  is  essentially  a 
single  figure,  and  his  wanderings  may  easily 
be  taken  to  typify  the  excursions  of  the 
human  soul.  ^Eneas,  on  the  other  hand, 
seems  always  the  centre  of  a  family  gi'oup, 
and  his  journey ings  always  appear  to  be 
movements  toward  a  final  city  and  nation. 
The  Greek  idea  of  individuality  and  the 
Roman  of  relationship  have  signal  illustra- 
1  D'Arcy  W.  Thompson,  in  his  Ancient  Leaves. 


32  CHILDHOOD  IN  LITERATURE 

tion  in  these  poems.  Throughout  the  ^neid 
the  figure  of  Ascanius  is  an  important  one. 
There  is  a  nice  disclosure  of  growth  in  per- 
sonality, and  one  is  aware  that  the  grand- 
son is  coming  forward  into  his  place  as  a 
member  of  the  family,  to  be  thereafter  rep- 
resentative. The  poet  never  loses  sight  of 
the  boy's  future.  Homer,  in  his  shield  of 
Achilles,  that  microcosm  of  himian  life,  for- 
gets to  make  room  for  children.  Virgil,  in 
his  prophetic  shield,  shows  the  long  triimiphs 
from  Ascanius  down,  and  casts  a  light  upon 
the  cave  wherein  the  twin  boys  were  suckled 
by  the  wolf.  One  of  the  most  interesting 
episodes  in  the  ^neid  is  the  childhood  of 
Camilla,  in  which  the  warrior  maid's  nature 
is  carried  back  and  reproduced  in  diminu- 
tive form.  The  evolutions  of  the  boys  in 
the  fifth  book,  while  full  of  boyish  life, 
come  rather  under  the  form  of  mimic  sol- 
diery than  of  spontaneous  youth.  In  one  of 
the  Eclogues,  Virgil  has  a  graceful  sugges- 
tion of  the  stature  of  a  child  by  its  ability  to 
reach  only  the  lowest  branches  of  a  tree. 

Childhood,  in  Roman  literature,  is  not 
contemplated  as  a  fine  revelation  of  nature. 
In  the  grosser  conception,  children  are  reck- 
oned as  scarcely  more  than  cubs ;  but  with 


IN  ROMAN  LITERATURE  33 

the  strong  hold  which  the  family  idea  had 
upon  the  Roman  mind,  it  was  impossible 
that  in  the  refinement  which  came  gradually 
upon  life  childhood  should  not  play  a  part 
of  its  own  in  poetry,  and  come  to  represent 
the  more  spiritual  side  of  the  family  life. 
Thus  Catullus,  in  one  of  his  nuptial  odes, 
has  a  charming  picture  of  infancy  awaking 
into  consciousness  and  affection  :  — 

"  Soon  my  eyes  shall  see,  mayhap, 
Young  Torquatus  on  the  lap 
Of  his  mother,  as  he  stands 
Stretching  out  his  tiny  hands, 
And  his  little  lips  the  while 
Half  open  on  his  father's  smile. 

"  And  oh !  may  he  in  all  be  like 
Manlius,  his  sire,  and  strike 
Strangers  when  the  boy  they  meet 
As  his  father's  counterfeit, 
And  his  face  the  index  be 
Of  his  mother's  chastity."  ^ 

The  epitaphs  and  the  elegies  of  the  Greek 
Anthology  have  their  counterpart  in  Latin. 
Mr.  Thompson  has  tried  his  hand  at  a  pas- 
sage from  Statins  :  ^  — 

ON  THE  DEATH  OF  A  CHILD. 

Shall  I  not  mourn  thee,  darling  boy  ?  with  whom. 

Childless  I  missed  not  children  of  my  own  ; 

I,  who  first  caught  and  pressed  thee  to  my  breast, 

^  Theodore  Martin's  translation. 
2  Silvce,  V.  5,  79-87. 


34         CHILDHOOD  IN  LITERATURE 

And  called  thee  mine,  and  taught  thee  sounds  and  words, 

And  solved  the  riddle  of  thy  murmurings, 

And  stoop'd  to  catch  thee  creeping  on  the  ground, 

And  propp'd  thy  steps,  and  ever  had  my  lap 

Ready,  if  drowsy  were  those  little  eyes, 

To  rock  them  with  a  lullahy  to  sleep  ; 

Thy  first  word  was  my  name,  thy  fun  my  smile, 

And  not  a  joy  of  thine  but  came  from  me. 

There  is,  too,  that  epitaph  of  Martial  on 
the  little  girl  Erotion,  closing  with  the  lines 
which  may  possibly  have  been  in  Gray's 
mind  when  he  wrote  the  discarded  verse  of 
his  Elegy,  Englished  thus :  — 

"  Let  not  the  sod  too  stiffly  stretch  its  girth 
Above  those  tender  limbs,  erstwhUe  so  free  ; 
Press  lightly  on  her  form,  dear  Mother  Earth, 
Her  little  footsteps  lightly  fell  on  thee."  ^ 

In  the  literature  which  sounds  the  deeper 
waters  of  life,  we  find  references  to  child- 
hood ;  but  the  child  rarely,  if  ever,  draws 
the  thought  outside  of  the  confines  of  this 
world.  As  near  an  approach  as  any  to  a  per- 
ception of  the  mystery  of  childhood  is  in  a 
passage  in  Lucretius,  where  the  poet  looks 
down  with  compassion  upon  the  new-born 
infant  as  one  of  the  mysteries  of  nature : 
"  Moreover,  the  babe,  like  a  sailor  cast 
ashore  by  the  cruel  waves,  lies  naked  on  the 

^  Contributors'  Club,  Atlantic  Monthly,  Jime,  1881. 


IN  ROMAN  LITERATURE  35 

ground,  speechless,  in  need  of  every  aid  to 
life  when  first  nature  has  cast  him  forth  by 
great  throes  from  his  mother's  womb,  and  he 
fills  the  air  with  his  piteous  wail,  as  befits 
one  whose  doom  it  is  to  pass  through  so 
much  misery  in  life."  ^  Lucretius  displayed 
a  profound  reverence  for  human  affection. 
Scattered  through  his  great  poem  are  fine 
lines  in  which  childhood  appears.  "  Soon," 
he  says,  in  one  mournful  passage,  — "  soon 
shall  thy  home  receive  thee  no  more  with 
glad  welcome,  nor  thy  dear  children  run  to 
snatch  thy  first  kiss,  touching  thy  heart  with 
silent  gladness."  ^ 

Juvenal,  with  the  thought  of  youth  as  the 
possible  restoration  of  a  sinking  world,  utters 
a  cry,  which  has  often  been  taken  up  by 
sensualists  even,  when  he  injects  into  his 
pitiless  satire  the  solemn  words,  "  the  great- 
est reverence  is  due  to  the  boy."  ^ 

Any  survey  of  ancient  Greek  and  Roman 
life  would  be  incomplete  which  left  out  of 
view  the  supernatural  element.  We  need 
not  inquire  whether  there  was  a  conscious 

1  De  Rerum  Natura,  V.  222-227,  cited  in  Sellar'a  The 
Roman  Poets  of  the  Republic,  p.  39G. 

2  Ibid.  III.  894-896.    Sellar,  p.  364 
8  Satire  xiv.  47. 


36  CHILDHOOD  IN  LITERATURE 

materialization  of  spiritual  forces,  or  an 
idealization  of  physical  phenomena.  We 
have  simply  to  do  with  certain  shapes  and 
figures  which  dwelt  in  the  mind  and  formed 
a  part  of  its  furniture ;  coming  and  going 
like  shadows,  yet  like  shadows  confessing  a 
forming  substance  ;  embodying  belief  and 
symbolizing  moods.  In  that  overarching 
and  surrounding  world,  peopled  by  the 
countless  personages  of  Greek  and  Roman 
supernaturalism,  we  may  discover,  if  we  wiU, 
a  vague,  distorted,  yet  sometimes  transcen- 
dent reflection  of  the  life  which  men  and 
women  were  living  upon  the  more  palpable 
and  tangible  earth. 

What,  then,  has  the  childhood  of  the  gods 
to  tell  us  ?  We  have  the  playful  incident 
of  Hermes,  or  Mercurius,  getting  out  of  his 
cradle  to  steal  the  oxen  of  Admetos,  and  the 
similar  one  of  Herakles  strangling  the  snakes 
that  attacked  him  just  after  his  birth ;  but 
these  are  simply  stories  intended  to  carry 
back  into  childhood  the  strength  of  the  one 
and  the  cunning  of  the  other.  It  is  more  to 
our  purpose  to  note  the  presence  in  the  Pan- 
theon of  the  child  who  remains  always  a 
child,  and  is  known  to  us  familiarly  as  Eros, 
or  Cupid,  or  Amor.    It  is  true  that  the  myth 


IN  ROMAN  LITERATURE  37 

includes  the  union  of  Cupid  and  Psyche ; 
nevertheless,  the  prevailing  conception  is  of 
a  boy,  winged,  armed  with  bow  and  arrows, 
the  son  and  messenger  of  Venus.  It  may 
be  said  that  the  myth  gradually  adapted 
itself  to  this  form,  which  is  not  especially 
apparent  in  the  earlier  stories.  The  figure 
of  Love,  as  thus  presented,  has  been  more 
completely  adopted  into  modern  poetry  than 
any  other  in  the  old  mythology,  and  it  can- 
not be  said  that  its  characteristics  have  been 
materially  altered.  It  is  doubtful  whether 
the  ancient  idea  was  more  simple  than  the 
same  when  reproduced  in  Thorwaldsen's 
scidpture,  or  in  Ben  Jonson's  Venus'  Run- 
away. The  central  conception  is  essentially 
an  unmoral  one ;  it  knows  not  right  or 
wrong,  good  or  evil ;  the  mischief-making  is 
capricious,  and  not  malicious.  There  is  the 
idea  only  of  delight,  of  an  innocence  which 
is  untutored,  of  a  wiU  which  is  the  wind's 
will.  It  would  seem  as  if,  in  fastening  upon 
childhood  as  the  embodiment  of  love,  the 
ancients,  as  well  as  their  modern  heirs,  were 
bent  upon  ridding  life  of  conscience  and 
fate,  —  upon  making  love  to  have  neither 
memory  nor  foresight,  but  only  the  joy  of 
the  moment.     This    sporting   child   was   a 


38  CHILDHOOD  IN  LITERATURE 

refuge,  in  their  minds,  from  the  ills  of  life, 
a  residence  of  the  one  central  joy  of  the 
world.  There  is  an  infinite  pathos  in  the 
erection  of  childhood  into  a  temple  for  the 
worship  of  Love.  There  was,  indeed,  in  the 
reception  of  this  myth,  a  wide  range  from 
purity  to  grossness,  as  the  word  "  love  "  itself 
has  to  do  service  along  an  arc  which  sub- 
tends heaven  and  hell ;  but  when  we  distill 
the  poetry  and  art  which  gather  about  the 
myth  of  Cupid,  the  essence  will  be  found  in 
this  conception  of  love  as  a  child, — a  con- 
ception never  wholly  lost,  even  when  the 
child  was  robbed  of  the  purity  which  we  rec- 
ognize as  its  ideal  property.  It  should  be 
noted,  also,  that  the  Romans  laid  hold  of 
this  idea  more  eagerly  than  did  the  Greeks ; 
for  the  child  itself,  though  more  artistically 
set  forth  in  Greek  literature,  appears  as  a 
more  vital  force  in  Roman  literature.^ 

^  A  thoughtful  writer  in  The  Spectator,  3  September, 
1887,  notes  the  absence  of  representations  of  childhood 
in  ancient  art  and  literature,  and  the  following  number 
of  the  journal  contains  a  note  of  protest  from  Mr.  Alfred 
Austin,  in  which  he  says  pertinently :  "  Is  it  not  the  foi- 
ble of  modern  art,  if  I  may  use  a  homely  expression,  to 
make  a  fuss  over  what  it  feels,  or  wants  others  to  feel, 
whereas  an  older  and  a  nobler  art,  which  is  by  no  means 
extinct  among  vis,  prefers  to  indicate  emotion  rather  than 
to  dwell  on  it  ?  " 


Ill 

IN  HEBREW   LIFE   AND   LITERATURE 

The  literature  of  Greece  and  Rome  is  a 
possession  of  the  modern  world.  For  the 
most  part  it  has  been  taken  as  an  indepen- 
dent creation,  studied  indeed  with  reference 
to  language  as  the  vehicle  of  thought,  but 
after  all  chiefly  as  an  art.  It  is  within  a 
comparatively  recent  time  that  the  concep- 
tion of  an  historical  study  of  literature  has 
been  prominent,  and  that  men  have  gone  to 
Greek  and  Roman  poetry  with  an  eager 
passion  for  the  discovery  of  ancient  life. 
The  result  of  these  new  methods  has  been 
to  humanize  our  conception  of  the  literature 
under  examination. 

Singularly  enough,  while  the  modern  world 
has  been  influenced  by  the  classic  world 
chiefly  through  its  language,  literature,  and 
institutions,  the  third  great  stream  of  in- 
fluence which  has  issued  from  ancient 
sources  has  been  one  in  which  literature  as 
such  has  been  almost  subordinated   to  the 


40  CHILDHOOD  IN  LITERATURE 

religious  and  ethical  ideas  of  which  it  was 
the  vehicle ;  even  the  strong  institutional 
forces  inherent  in  it  have  had  only  excep- 
tional attention.  There  was  a  time,  indeed, 
when  the  history  of  the  Jews,  as  contained 
in  the  books  of  the  Old  Testament,  was  iso- 
lated from  the  history  of  mankind  and 
treated  in  an  artificial  manner,  at  its  best 
made  to  illustrate  conduct,  somewhat  as 
Latin  literature  was  made  to  exemplify 
syntax.  The  old  distinction  of  sacred  and 
profane  history  did  much  to  obscure  the 
human  element  in  what  was  called  sacred 
history,  and  to  blot  out  the  divine  element 
in  what  was  called  profane  history.  There 
are  many  who  can  remember  the  impression 
made  upon  their  minds  when  they  learned 
for  the  first  time  of  the  contemporaneousness 
of  events  in  Jewish  and  Grecian  history ;  and 
it  is  not  impossible  that  some  can  even  recall 
a  period  in  their  lives  when  Bible  people 
and  the  Bible  lands  were  almost  as  distinct 
and  separate  in  their  conception  as  if  they 
belonged  to  another  planet. 

Nevertheless,  the  reality  of  Old  Testament 
history,  while  suffering  from  lack  of  propor- 
tion in  relation  to  other  parts  of  human  his- 
tory, has  been  impressed  upon  modern  civU- 


IN  HEBREW  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE  41 

ization  through  its  close  identification  with 
the  religious  life.  The  inheritance  of  these 
scriptures  of  the  ancient  Hebrew  has  been 
so  complete  that  the  modern  Jew  is  regarded 
almost  as  a  pretender  when  he  sets  up  a 
claim  to  special  possession.  We  jostle  him 
out  of  the  way,  and  appropriate  his  national 
documents  as  the  old  title-deeds  of  Chris- 
tianity. There  is,  indeed,  an  historic  truth 
involved  in  this ;  but,  however  we  may  regard 
it,  we  are  brought  back  to  the  significant 
fact  that  along  with  the  Greek  and  the  Ro- 
man influence  upon  modern  life  has  been 
the  mighty  force  of  Hebraism.  The  Greek 
has  impressed  himself  upon  our  modes  and 
processes  of  thought,  the  Koman  upon  our 
organization,  the  Hebrew  upon  our  religious 
and  social  life.^ 

It  is  certain  that  the  Bible  has  been  a 
storehouse  from  which  have  been  drawn 
illustrations  of  life  and  character,  and  that 
these  have  had  an  authority  beyond  any- 
thing in  classic  history  and  literature.  It 
has  been  the  book  from  which  youth  with  us 
has  drawn  its  conceptions  of  life  outside  of 

^  See  an  interesting  statement  of  this  Biblical  force  in 
the  preface  to  Matthew  Arnold's  The  Great  Prophecy  of 
Israel''s  Restoration,  London,  1872. 


42  CHILDHOOD  IN  LITERATURE 

the  limited  circle  of  human  experience  ;  and 
the  geographical,  historical,  and  archaeologi- 
cal apparatus  employed  to  illustrate  it  has 
been  far  more  considerable  than  any  like 
apparatus  in  classical  study.  The  Bible  has 
been  the  university  to  the  person  of  ordinary 
culture  ;  it  has  brought  into  his  life  a  for- 
eign element  which  Greece  and  Rome  have 
been  powerless  to  present ;  and  though  the 
images  of  this  remote  foreign  life  often 
have  been  distorted,  and  strangely  mingled 
with  familiar  notions,  there  can  be  no  doubt 
that  the  mind  has  been  enlarged  by  this 
extension  of  its  interests  and  knowledge. 

It  is  worth  while,  therefore,  to  ask  what 
conceptions  of  childhood  are  discoverable  in 
the  Old  Testament  literature.  The  actual 
appearances  of  children  in  the  narrative 
portions  are  not  frequent.  We  have  the 
incident  of  the  exposure  of  Moses  as  a  babe 
in  the  bulrushes ;  the  sickness  and  death  of 
Bathsheba's  child,  with  the  pathetic  story 
of  the  erring  father's  fasting  and  prayer ; 
the  expulsion  of  Ishmael ;  the  childhood 
of  Samuel  in  the  temple ;  the  striking  nar- 
rative of  the  restoration  of  the  son  of  the 
widow  of  Zarephath  by  Elijah  ;  and  the  still 
more  graphic  and    picturesque    description 


IN  HEBREW  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE  43 

of  the  bringing  back  to  life  by  Elisha  of 
the  child  who  had  been  born  at  his  inter- 
cession to  the  Shunamite,  and  had  been 
sun  struck  when  in  the  field  with  his  father. 
Then  there  is  the  abrupt  and  hard  to  be 
explained  narrative  of  the  jeering  boys  who 
followed  the  prophet  Elisha  with  derisive 
cries,  as  they  saw  how  different  he  was  in 
external  appearance  from  the  rugged  and 
awe-inspiring  Elijah.  Whatever  may  be 
the  interpretation  of  the  fearful  retribution 
which  befell  those  rude  boys,  and  the  indica- 
tion which  was  shown  of  the  majesty  of  the 
prophetic  office,  it  is  clear  that  the  Jew  of 
that  day  would  not  have  felt  any  dispropor- 
tion between  the  guilt  of  the  boys  and  their 
dire  and  speedy  punishment ;  he  woidd  have 
been  impressed  by  the  sanctity  of  the  pro- 
phet, and  the  swiftness  of  the  divine  dem- 
onstration. Life  and  death  were  nothing 
before  the  integrity  of  the  divine  ideal,  and 
the  complete  subordination  of  children  to 
the  will  of  their  parents  accustomed  the 
mind  to  an  easy  assent  to  the  exhibition  of 
what  seems  to  us  almost  arbitrary  will. 

No  attentive  reader  of  the  Old  Testament 
has  failed  to  remark  the  prominence  given 
to  the  preservation  of  the  family  successioo, 


44  CHILDHOOD  IN  LITERATURE 

and  to  the  birth  of  male  children.  That 
laugh  of  Sarah  —  at  first  of  scorn,  then  of 
triumph  —  sounds  out  from  the  early  records 
with  a  strange,  prophetic  voice ;  and  one 
reads  the  thirtieth  chapter  of  the  book  of 
Genesis  with  a  sense  of  the  wild,  passionate 
rivalry  of  the  two  wives  of  Jacob,  as  they 
bring  forth,  one  after  another,  the  twelve 
sons  of  the  patriarch.  The  burst  of  praise 
also  from  Hannah,  when  she  was  freed  from 
her  bitter  shame  and  had  brought  forth  her 
son  Samuel,  has  its  echo  through  history 
and  psalm  and  prophecy  until  it  issues  in 
the  clear,  bell-like  tones  of  the  Magnificat, 
thenceforward  to  be  the  hymn  of  triumph  of 
the  Christian  church.  The  voice  of  God, 
as  it  uttered  itself  in  commandment  and 
prophetic  warning,  was  for  children  and 
children's  children  to  the  latest  generation. 
It  is  not  the  person  so  much  as  the  family 
that  is  addressed,  and  the  strongest  warn- 
ings, the  brightest  promises  to  the  fathers, 
are  through  the  children.  The  prophet  Ho- 
sea  could  use  no  more  terrible  word  to  the 
people  than  when,  speaking  as  the  mouth- 
piece of  God,  he  says  :  "  Seeing  thou  hast 
forgotten  the  law  of  thy  God,  I  will  also 
forget  thy  children  ;  "  ^  and  Zechariah,  in- 
^  Hosea  iv.  6. 


IN  HEBREW  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE  45 

spiriting  the  people,  declares  :  "  They  shall 
remember  me  in  far  countries;  and  they 
shall  live  with  their  children."  ^  The  prom- 
ise of  the  golden  age  of  peace  and  pros- 
perity has  its  climax  in  the  innocence  of 
childhood.  "  There  shall  yet  old  men  and 
old  women  dwell  in  the  streets  of  Jerusalem, 
and  every  man  with  his  staff  in  his  hand  for 
very  age.  And  the  streets  of  the  city  shall 
he  full  of  boys  and  girls  playing  in  the 
streets  thereof ;  "  ^  while  the  lofty  antici- 
pation of  Isaiah,  in  words  which  still  serve 
as  symbols  of  hopeful  humanity,  reaches  its 
height  in  the  prediction  of  a  profound  peace 
among  the  very  brutes,  when  the  wolf  and 
the  lamb,  the  leopard  and  the  kid,  the  calf, 
the  young  lion,  and  the  fatling  shall  not  only 
lay  aside  their  mutual  hate  and  fear,  but 
shall  be  obedient  to  the  tender  voice  and 
gentle  hand  of  a  little  child,  and  even  the 
noxious  reptiles  shall  be  playmates  for  the 
infant.^  In  the  Greek  fable,  Hercules  in 
his  cradle  strangled  the  snakes  by  his  might ; 
in  the  Jewish  picture,  the  child  enters  fear- 
lessly the  very  dens  of  the  asp  and  the 
adder,  secure  under  the  reign  of  a  perfect 
righteousness. 

1  Zech.  X.  9.         2  Zech  viii.  4.  5.         «  Isa.  xi.  6-3. 


46  CHILDHOOD  IN  LITERATURE 

Milton,  in  his  Ode  on  the  Morning  of 
Christ's  Nativity,  has  pointed  out  this  par- 
allel :  — 

"  He  feela  from  Judah's  land 
The  dreaded  infant's  band, 

The  rays  of  Bethlehem  blind  his  dusky  eyno ; 
Nor  all  the  gods  beside 
Longer  dare  abide, 

Not  Typhon  huge  ending  in  snaky  twine  ; 
Our  babe,  to  show  his  Godhead  true, 
Can  in  his  swaddling  bands  control  the  damned  crew." 

To  the  Jew,  childhood  was  the  sign  of  ful- 
fillment of  glorious  promises.  The  burden 
of  psalm  and  prophecy  was  of  a  golden  age 
to  come,  not  of  one  that  was  in  the  dim  past. 
A  nation  is  kept  alive,  not  by  memory,  but 
by  hope.  The  God  of  Abraham  and  of  Isaac 
and  of  Jacob  was  the  God  of  a  procession  of 
generations,  a  God  of  sons  and  of  sons'  sons ; 
and  when  we  read,  in  the  last  words  of  the 
last  canonical  book  of  the  Old  Testament, 
that  "  he  shall  turn  the  heart  of  the  fathers 
to  the  children,  and  the  heart  of  the  chil- 
dren to  their  fathers,"  ^  we  are  prepared  for 
the  opening,  four  centuries  later,  of  the  last 
chapter  in  the  ancient  history  of  this  people. 
In  the  adoration  there  of  the  child  we  seem 
to   see   the   concentration   of   Jewish   hope 

^  Malachi  iv.  6. 


IN  HEBREW  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE  47 

which  had  for  centuries  found  expression  in 
numberless  ways.  The  Magnificat  of  Mary 
is  the  song  of  Hannah,  purified  and  enno- 
bled by  generations  of  deferred  hope,  and  in 
all  the  joy  and  prophecy  of  the  shepherds, 
of  Simeon  and  of  Anna,  we  listen  to  strains 
which  have  a  familiar  sound.  It  is  indeed 
the  expectation  of  what  this  child  will  be 
and  do  which  moves  the  pious  souls  about  it, 
but  there  is  a  direct  veneration  of  the  babe 
as  containing  the  hope  of  the  people.  In 
this  supreme  moment  of  the  Jewish  nation, 
age  bows  itself  reverently  before  childhood, 
and  we  are  able  by  the  light  which  the  event 
throws  backward  to  perceive  more  clearly 
how  great  was  the  power  of  childhood, 
through  all  the  earlier  periods,  in  its  influ- 
ence upon  the  imagination  and  reason.  We 
may  fairly  contend  that  the  apprehension  of 
the  sanctity  of  childhood  was  more  positive 
with  the  Jew  than  with  either  the  Greek  or 
the  Roman. 

It  remains,  however,  that  this  third  great 
stream  of  humanity  passes  out,  in  the  New 
Testament,  from  its  Hebraic  limitations,  and 
we  are  unable,  except  by  a  special  effort,  to 
think  of  it  as  Jewish  at  all.  The  Gospels 
transcend  national  and  local  and  temporal 


48  CHILDHOOD  IN  LITERATURE 

limits,  and  we  find  ourselves,  when  consider- 
ing them,  reading  the  beginnings  of  modern, 
not  the  close  of  Jewish  history.  The  inci- 
dents lying  along  the  margin  of  the  Gospels 
and  relating  to  the  birth  of  the  Christ  do, 
as  we  have  seen,  connect  themselves  with  the 
earlier  national  development,  but  the  strong 
light  which  comes  at  the  dawn  of  Christian- 
ity inevitably  draws  the  mind  forward  to  the 
new  day. 

The  evangelists  record  no  incidents  of  the 
childhood  of  Jesus  which  separate  it  from 
the  childhood  of  other  of  the  children  of 
men.  The  flight  into  Egypt  is  the  flight 
of  parents  with  a  child  ;  the  presence  of  the 
boy  in  the  temple  is  marked  by  no  abnormal 
sign,  for  it  is  a  distorted  imagination  which 
has  given  the  unbiblical  title  to  the  scene,  — 
Christ  disputing  with  the  Doctors,  or  Christ 
teaching  in  the  Temple.  But  as  the  narra- 
tive of  the  Saviour's  ministry  proceeds,  we 
are  reminded  again  and  again  of  the  pres- 
ence of  children  in  the  multitudes  that  flocked 
about  him.  The  signs  and  wonders  which 
he  wrought  were  more  than  once  through 
the  lives  of  the  young,  and  the  suffering 
and  disease  of  humanity  which  form  the 
background  in  the  Gospels  upon  which  we 


IN  HEBREW  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE  49 

see  sketched  in  lines  of  light  the  outline  of 
the  redeeming  Son  of  Man  are  shown  in  the 
persons  of  children,  while  the  deeper  life  of 
humanity  is  disclosed  in  the  tenderness  of 
parents.  It  is  in  the  Gospels  that  we  have 
those  vignettes  of  human  life, — the  healing 
of  the  daughter  of  Jairus,  the  delivery  of  the 
boy  possessed  with  devils,  that  striking  an- 
tithesis to  the  transfiguration  which  Ra- 
phael's genius  has  served  to  fix  in  the  mind, 
the  healing  of  the  nobleman's  son,  and  the 
blessing  of  children  brought  to  the  Master 
by  their  fond  mothers.  Most  notable,  too, 
is  the  scene  of  the  final  entry  into  Jerusa- 
lem, when  the  Saviour  appeared  to  accept 
from  children  the  tribute  which  he  shmined 
when  it  came  from  their  elders. 

Here,  as  in  other  cases,  we  ask  what  was 
the  attitude  of  the  Saviour  toward  children, 
since  the  literature  of  the  New  Testament  is 
so  confessedly  a  revelation  of  life  and  char- 
acter that  we  instinctively  refuse  to  treat  it 
otherwise.  In  vain  do  we  listen  to  those 
who  point  out  the  ethical  beauty  of  the  Ser- 
mon on  the  Mount,  or  the  pathos  of  this  or 
that  incident ;  our  minds  break  through  aU 
considerations  of  style  and  form,  to  seize 
upon  the  facts  and  truths  in  their  relation  to 


50  CHILDHOOD  IN  LITERATURE 

life.  We  do  not  ask,  what  is  the  representa- 
tion of  childhood  to  be  found  in  the  writings 
of  certain  Jews  known  as  Matthew,  Mark, 
Luke,  and  John  ;  we  ask,  what  is  there  be- 
tween children  and  the  central  figure  dis- 
closed in  those  writings.  We  ask  purposely, 
for,  when  we  leave  behind  this  ancient  world, 
we  enter  upon  the  examination  of  literature 
and  art  which  are  never  beyond  the  horizon 
lying  under  the  rays  of  the  Sun  of  Right- 
eousness. The  attitude  which  Christ  took 
toward  children  must  contain  the  explana- 
tion of  the  attitude  which  Christianity  takes 
toward  the  same,  for  the  literature  and  art 
of  Christendom  become  the  exponents  of 
the  conception  had  of  the  Christ. 

There  are  two  or  three  significant  words 
and  acts  which  leave  us  in  no  doubt  as  to 
the  general  aspect  which  childhood  wore  to 
Jesus  Christ.  In  the  conversation  which  he 
held  with  the  intellectual  Nicodemus,  he 
asserted  the  necessity  of  a  new  birth  for 
mankind ;  in  the  rite  of  baptism  he  symbol- 
ized the  same  truth  ;  he  expanded  this  word 
again,  accompanying  it  by  a  symbolic  act, 
when  he  placed  a  child  in  the  midst  of  his 
disciples  and  bade  them  begin  life  over 
again ;  he  illustrated  the  truth  by  an  acted 


IN  HEBREW  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE  51 

parable,  when  he  called  little  children  to 
him  with  the  words,  "  Of  such  is  the  king- 
dom of  heaven ;  "  he  turned  from  the  hard, 
skeptical  men  of  that  generation  with  the 
words  of  profound  relief :  "  I  thank  thee, 
O  Father,  Lord  of  heaven  and  earth,  that 
thou  hast  hid  these  things  from  the  wise 
and  prudent,  and  hast  revealed  them  unto 
babes ; "  he  symbolized  the  charity  of  life 
in  the  gift  of  a  cup  of  cold  water  to  a  child. 
The  eyes  of  this  Jesus,  the  Saviour  of 
men,  were  ever  upon  the  new  heavens  and 
the  new  earth.  The  kingdom  of  heaven 
was  the  burden  of  his  announcement ;  the 
new  life  which  was  to  come  to  men  shone 
most  plainly  in  the  persons  of  young  chil- 
dren. Not  only  were  the  babes  whom  he 
saw  and  blessed  to  partake  of  the  first 
entrance  into  the  kingdom  of  the  spirit,  but 
childhood  possessed  in  his  sight  the  potency 
of  the  new  world ;  it  was  under  the  protec- 
tion of  a  father  and  mother  ;  it  was  fearless 
and  trusting ;  it  was  unconscious  of  self ;  it 
lived  and  did  not  think  about  living.  The 
words  of  prophets  and  psalmists  had  again 
and  again  found  in  the  throes  of  a  woman 
in  labor  a  symbol  of  the  struggle  of  human- 
ity for  a  new  generation.     By  a  bold  and 


52  CHILDHOOD  IN  LITERATURE 

jirofound  figure  it  was  said  of  the  great  cen- 
tral person  of  humanity :  "  He  shall  see  of 
the  travail  of  his  soul  and  be  satisfied."  A 
foregleam  of  that  satisfaction  is  found  in 
his  face  as  he  gazes  upon  the  children  who 
are  brought  to  him.  There  is  sorrow  as 
he  gazes  upon  the  world,  and  his  face  is 
set  toward  Jerusalem  ;  there  is  a  calm  joy 
as  he  places  a  child  before  him  and  sees  in 
his  young  innocence  the  promise  of  the 
kingdom  of  heaven ;  there  is  triumph  in 
his  voice  as  he  rebukes  the  men  who 
would  fain  shut  the  mouths  of  the  shouting 
children  that  run  before  him. 

The  pregnant  words  which  Jesus  Christ 
used  regarding  childhood,  the  new  birth, 
and  the  kingdom  of  heaven  become  indica- 
tive of  the  great  movements  in  life  and  liter- 
ature and  art  from  that  day  to  this.  The 
successive  gestations  of  history  have  their 
tokens  in  some  specific  regard  of  childhood. 
There  have  been  three  such  periods,  so 
mighty  that  they  mark  each  the  beginning 
of  a  new  heaven  and  a  new  earth.  The  first 
was  the  genesis  of  the  Christian  church ; 
the  second  was  the  Renaissance ;  the  third 
had  its  great  sign  in  the  French  Revolution. 


IV 

IN   EARLY   CHRISTIANITY 

The  parabolic  expression,  "  Destroy  this 
temple,  and  in  three  days  I  will  raise  it  up," 
has  been  applied  with  force  to  the  destruc- 
tion of  Judaism,  and  the  reconstruction 
upon  its  ruins  of  a  living  Christianity.  It 
may  be  applied  with  equal  justice,  though 
in  more  recondite  sense,  to  the  death  of  the 
old  literature  and  art,  and  the  resurrection 
of  the  beautiful  creations  of  the  human 
mind  in  new  form.  The  three  days  were 
more  than  a  thousand  years,  and  during 
that  long  sleep  what  had  become  of  those 
indestructible  forces  of  imagination  and  rea- 
son which  combine  in  literature  and  art? 
Roughly  speaking,  they  were  disjoined,  and 
only  when  reunited  did  they  again  assert 
themselves  in  living  form.  The  power 
which  kept  each  in  abeyance  was  structural 
Christianity,  and  only  when  that  began  to 
be  burst  asunder  by  the  vital  force  inherent 
in  spiritual  Cluistianity  was  there  opportu- 


54  CHILDHOOD  IN  LITEBATURE 

nity  for  the  free  union  of  the  imagination 
and  reason.  As  the  Jewish  temple  could 
no  longer  inclose  divinity,  but  was  thrust 
apart  by  the  expansive  power  of  the  Chris- 
tianity which  was  fostered  within  it,  so  the 
Christian  church,  viewed  as  an  institution 
which  aimed  at  an  inclosure  of  humanity, 
was  in  its  turn  disrupted  by  the  silent 
growth  of  the  human  spirit  which  had  fed 
within  its  walls  upon  the  divine  life.  After 
the  birth  of  Christianity  the  parallel  con- 
tinuity of  the  old  world  was  broken.  The 
Greek,  the  Roman,  and  the  Hebrew  no 
longer  carried  forward  their  separate  move- 
ments. Christianity,  professing  to  annul 
these  forces,  had  taken  their  place  in  history. 
Again,  at  the  Renaissance,  it  was  found 
that  the  three  great  streams  of  human 
thought  had  been  flowing  undergroimd; 
they  reissued  to  the  light  in  a  generous 
flood,  each  combining  with  the  others. 

It  was  during  this  long  period  of  apparent 
inaction  in  literature  and  art  that  the  ima- 
gination, dissevered  from  reason,  was  in  a 
state  of  abnormal  activity.  The  compression 
of  its  field  caused  the  faculty  to  find  expres- 
sion through  forms  which  were  very  closely 
connected  with    the    dominant    sphere    of 


IN  EARLY  CHRISTIANITY  55 

human  life.  Before  religious  art  and  eccle- 
siastical architecture  had  become  the  abun- 
dant expression  of  Christian  imagination, 
there  was  generated  a  great  mass  of  legend 
and  fable,  which  only  by  degrees  became 
formally  embodied  in  literature  or  perpet- 
uated in  art  and  symbol.  The  imaginative 
faculty  had  given  it,  for  material  in  which 
to  work  the  new  life,  the  soul  of  man  as 
distinctly  related  to  God.  An  ethical  prin- 
ciple lay  at  the  foundation  of  Christianity, 
and  the  imagination,  stimulated  by  faith, 
built  with  materials  drawn  from  ethical  life. 
The  germinal  truth  of  Christianity,  that 
God  had  manifested  himself  to  men  in  the 
person  of  Jesus  Christ,  however  it  might  be 
obscured  or  misunderstood,  was  the  efficient 
cause  of  the  operations  of  the  Christian 
imagination.  This  faculty  set  before  itself 
the  perfect  man,  and  in  that  conceived  not 
the  physical  and  intellectual  man  of  the 
Greek  conception,  nor  the  Caesar  of  the 
Roman  ideal,  nor  even  the  moral  man  of 
the  Jewish  light,  but  a  man  whose  perfection 
was  the  counterpart  of  the  perfection  of 
God  and  its  great  exemplar,  the  man  Jesus 
Christ.  In  his  life  the  central  idea  of  ser- 
vice, of  victory  through  suffering  and  liumil- 


56  CHILDHOOD  IN  LITERATURE 

iation,  of  self-surrender,  and  of  union  with 
God  was  perceived  with  greater  or  less 
clearness,  and  this  idea  was  adumbrated  in 
that  vast  gallery  of  saints  constructed  by 
Christianity  in  its  ceaseless  endeavor  to 
reproduce  the  perfect  type.  Through  all 
the  extravagance  and  chaotic  confusion  of 
the  legendary  lore  of  the  mediaeval  church, 
one  may  discover  the  perpetually  recurring 
notes  of  the  perfect  life.  The  beatitudes  — 
those  spiritual  witnesses  of  the  redeemed 
human  character  —  are  ever  floating  before 
the  early  imagination,  and  offering  the  stand- 
ards by  which  it  measures  its  creations. 
It  was  by  no  fortuitous  suggestion,  but  by  a 
profound  sense  of  fitness,  that  the  church 
made  the  gospel  of  All  Saints'  Day  to  con- 
sist of  those  sentences  which  pronounce  the 
blessedness  of  the  poor  in  spirit,  the  meek, 
and  the  persecuted  for  righteousness'  sake; 
while  the  epistle  for  the  same  day  is  the 
roll-call  of  the  saints  who  are  to  sit  on  the 
thrones  of  the  twelve  tribes,  and  of  the  mul- 
titudes who  have  overcome  the  world. 

It  is  not  strange,  therefore,  that  the  im- 
agination, busying  itself  about  the  spiritual 
life  of  man,  should  have  dwelt  with  special 
emphasis  upon  those  signs  of  the  new  life 


IN  EARLY  CHRISTIANITY  57 

brought  to  light  in  the  Gospels,  which 
seemed  to  contain  the  promise  of  perfection. 
It  seized  upon  baptism  as  witnessing  to  a 
recreneration ;  it  traced  the  lives  of  saints 
back  to  a  childhood  which  began  with  bap- 
tism;  it  invested  the  weak  things  of  the 
world  with  a  mighty  power;  and,  keeping 
before  it  the  pattern  of  the  Head  of  the 
church,  it  traced  in  the  early  life  of  the  Sa- 
viour powers  which  confounded  the  common 
wisdom  of  men.  It  dwelt  with  fondness 
upon  the  adoration  of  the  Magi,  as  witness- 
ing to  the  supremacy  of  the  infant  Redeemer ; 
and,  occupied  as  it  was  with  the  idea  of  a 
suffering  Saviour,  it  carried  the  cross  back 
to  the  cradle,  and  found  in  the  Massacre  of 
the  Innocents  the  type  of  a  substitution  and 
vicarious  sacrifice. 

The  simple  annals  of  the  Gospels  shine 
with  great  beauty  when  confronted  by  the  in- 
genuity and  curious  adornment  of  the  legends 
included  in  the  so-called  Apocryphal  Gos- 
pels. Yet  these  legends  illustrate  the  eager- 
ness of  the  early  Christian  world  to  invest 
the  person  of  Jesus  with  every  possible  charm 
and  power  ;  and  since  the  weakness  of  in- 
fancy and  childhood  offers  the  strongest  con- 
trast to  works  of  thaumaturgy,  this  period  is 


68  CHILDHOOD  IN  LITERATURE 

very  fully  elaborated.  A  reason  may  also  be 
found  in  the  silence  of  the  evangelists,  which 
needed  to  be  broken  by  the  curious.  Thus, 
when,  in  the  flight  into  Egypt,  the  Holy 
Family  was  made  to  seek  rest  in  a  cave,  there 
suddenly  came  out  many  dragons ;  and  the 
children  who  were  with  the  family,  when  they 
saw  the  dragons,  cried  out  in  great  terror. 

"  Then  Jesus,"  says  the  narrative,  "  went 
down  from  the  bosom  of  his  mother,  and 
stood  on  his  feet  before  the  dragons ;  and 
they  adored  Jesus,  and  thereafter  retired. 
.  .  .  And  the  young  child  Jesus,  walking 
before  them,  commanded  them  to  hurt  no 
man.  But  Mary  and  Joseph  were  very  much 
afraid  lest  the  child  should  be  hurt  by  the 
dragons.  And  Jesus  said  to  them ;  '  Do  not 
be  afraid,  and  do  not  consider  me  to  be  a 
little  child ;  for  I  am  and  always  have  been 
perfect,  and  all  the  beasts  of  the  field  must 
needs  be  tame  before  me.'  Lions  and  pan- 
thers adored  him  likewise,  and  accompanied 
them  in  the  desert.  Wherever  Joseph  and 
the  blessed  Mary  went,  these  went  before 
them,  showing  them  the  way  and  bowing 
their  heads,  and  showing  their  submission  by 
wagging  their  tails ;  they  adored  him  with 
great  reverence.     Now  at  first,  when  Mary 


IN  EARLY  CHRISTIANITY  59 

saw  the  lions  and  the  panthers,  and  various 
kinds  of  wild  beasts  coming  about  them,  she 
was  very  much  afraid.  But  the  infant  Jesus 
looked  into  her  face  with  a  joyful  counte- 
nance, and  said  :  '  Be  not  afraid,  mother ;  for 
they  come  not  to  do  thee  harm,  but  they 
make  haste  to  serve  both  thee  and  me.' 
With  these  words  he  drove  all  fear  from 
her  heart.  And  the  lions  kept  walking  with 
them,  and  with  the  oxen  and  the  asses  and 
the  beasts  of  burden  which  carried  their 
baggage,  and  did  not  hurt  a  single  one  of 
them  ;  but  they  were  tame  among  the  sheep 
and  the  rams  which  they  had  brought  with 
them  from  Judsea,  and  which  they  had  with 
them.  They  walked  among  wolves  and  feared 
nothing,  and  no  one  of  them  was  hurt  by 
another."  ^ 

So,  too,  when  Mary  looked  helplessly  up 
at  the  fruit  of  a  palm-tree  hanging  far  out 
of  her  reach,  the  child  Jesus,  "  with  a  joyful 
countenance,  reposing  in  the  bosom  of  his 
mother,  said  to  the  palm,  '  O  tree,  bend  thy 
branches,  and  refresh  my  mother  with  thy 
fruit.'     And  immediately  at  these  words  the 

^  This  and  the  other  passages  from  the  Apocryphal 
Gospels  here  cited  are  in  the  translation  by  Alexander 
Walker. 


60  CHILDHOOD  IN  LITERATUEE 

palm  bent  its  top  down  to  the  very  feet  of 
the  blessed  Mary ;  and  they  gathered  from 
its  fruit,  with  which  they  were  all  refreshed. 
And  after  they  had  gathered  all  its  fruit,  it 
remained  bent  down,  waiting  the  order  to 
rise  from  him  who  had  commanded  it  to  stoop. 
Then  Jesus  said  to  it, '  Raise  thyself,  O  palm- 
tree,  and  be  strong,  and  be  the  companion 
of  my  trees  which  are  in  the  paradise  of  my 
Father ;  and  open  from  thy  roots  a  vein  of 
water  which  has  been  hid  in  the  earth,  and 
let  the  waters  flow,  so  that  we  may  be  satis- 
fied from  thee.'  And  it  rose  up  immediately, 
and  at  its  root  there  began  to  come  forth  a 
spring  of  water,  exceedingly  clear  and  cool 
and  sparkling.  And  when  they  saw  the 
spring  of  water  they  rejoiced  with  great  joy, 
and  were  satisfied,  themselves  and  all  their 
cattle  and  their  beasts.  Wherefore  they 
gave  thanks  to  God." 

The  legends  which  relate  to  the  boyhood 
of  Jesus  carry  back  with  a  violent  or  con- 
fused sense  the  acts  of  his  manhood.  Thus 
he  is  represented  more  than  once  as  willing 
the  death  of  a  playmate,  and  then  contemptu- 
ously bringing  him  to  life  again.  A  favor- 
ite story  grossly  misconceives  the  incident 
of  Christ  with  the  Doctors  in  the  temple,  and 


IN  EARLY  CHRISTIANITY  61 

makes  him  turn  his  schoolmaster  into  ridi- 
cule. There  are  other  stories,  the  incidents 
of  which  are  not  reflections  of  anything  in 
the  Gospels,  but  are  used  to  illustrate  in  a 
childish  way  the  wonder-workihg  power  of 
the  boy.  Here  is  one  which  curiously  min- 
gles the  miraculous  power  with  the  Saviour's 
doctrine  of  the  Sabbath  :  — 

"  And  it  came  to  pass,  after  these  things, 
that  in  the  sight  of  all  Jesus  took  clay  from 
the  pools  which  he  had  made,  and  of  it  made 
twelve  sparrows.  And  it  was  the  Sabbath 
when  Jesus  did  this,  and  there  were  very 
many  children  with  him.  When,  therefore, 
one  of  the  Jews  had  seen  him  doing  this,  he 
said  to  Joseph,. '  Joseph,  dost  thou  not  see 
the  child  Jesus  working  on  the  Sabbath  at 
what  it  is  not  lawful  for  him  to  do?  For 
he  has  made  twelve  sparrows  of  clay.'  And 
when  Joseph  heard  this,  he  reproved  him, 
saying,  '  Wherefore  doest  thou  on  the  Sab- 
bath such  things  as  are  not  lawful  for  us  to 
do?*  And  when  Jesus  heard  Joseph  he 
struck  his  hands  together,  and  said  to  his 
sparrows,  '  Fly ! '  and  at  the  voice  of  his 
command  they  began  to  fly.  And  in  the 
sight  and  hearing  of  all  that  stood  by  he  said 
to  the  birds,  '  Go  and  fly  through  the  earth, 


62  CHILDHOOD  IN  LITERATURE 

and  through  all  the  world,  and  live.'  And 
when  those  that  were  there  saw  such  mira- 
cles they  were  filled  with  great  astonish- 
ment." 

It  is  interesting  to  note  how  many  of  these 
stories  connect  the  child  with  animals.  The 
passage  in  Isaiah  which  prophesied  the 
great  peace  in  the  figure  of  a  child  leading 
wild  beasts  had  something  to  do  with  this ; 
so  had  the  birth  of  Jesus  in  a  manger,  and 
the  incident  of  the  entry  into  Jerusalem: 
but  I  suspect  that  the  imagination  scarcely 
needed  to  hunt  very  far  or  very  curiously 
for  suggestions,  since  the  world  over  child- 
hood has  been  associated  with  brute  life, 
and  the  writers  of  the  Apocryphal  Gospels 
had  only  to  make  these  animals  savage  when 
they  would  illustrate  the  potency  of  the 
childhood  of  Jesus. 

"  There  is  a  road  going  out  of  Jericho," 
says  the  Pseudo-gospel  of  Matthew,  "and 
leading  to  the  river  Jordan,  to  the  place 
where  the  children  of  Israel  crossed;  and 
there  the  ark  of  the  covenant  is  said  to  have 
rested.  And  Jesus  was  eight  years  old, 
and  he  went  out  of  Jericho  and  went  towards 
the  Jordan.  And  there  was  beside  the 
road,  near  the  banks  of  the  Jordan,  a  cave, 


IN  EARLY  CHRISTIANITY  63 

where  a  lioness  was  nursing  her  cubs ;  and 
no  one  was  safe  who  walked  that  way. 
Jesus,  then,  coming  from  Jericho,  and  know- 
ing that  in  that  cave  the  lioness  had  brought 
forth  her  young,  went  into  it  in  the  sight 
of  all.  And  when  the  lions  saw  Jesus  they 
ran  to  meet  him,  and  adored  him.  And 
Jesus  was  sitting  in  the  cavern,  and  the 
lion's  cubs  ran  hither  and  thither  round  his 
feet,  fawning  upon  him  and  sporting.  And 
the  older  lions,  with  their  heads  bowed 
down,  stood  at  a  distance  and  adored  him, 
and  fawned  upon  him  with  their  tails. 
Then  the  people,  who  were  standing  afar 
off,  not  seeing  Jesus,  said,  '  Unless  he  or  his 
parents  had  committed  grievous  sins,  he 
would  not  of  his  own  accord  have  offered 
himself  up  to  the  lions.'  And  when  the 
people  were  thus  reflecting  within  them- 
selves, and  were  lying  under  gi-eat  sorrow, 
behold,  on  a  sudden,  in  the  sight  of  the 
people,  Jesus  came  out  of  the  cave,  and  the 
lions  went  before  him,  and  the  lion's  cubs 
played  with  each  other  before  his  feet. 
And  the  parents  of  Jesus  stood  afar  off, 
with  their  heads  bowed  down,  and  watched  ; 
likewise,  also,  the  people  stood  at  a  distance, 
on  account  of  the  lions;  for  they  did  not 


64  CHILDHOOD  IN  LITERATURE 

dare  to  come  close  to  them.  Then  Jesus 
began  to  say  to  the  people,  '  How  much  bet- 
ter are  the  beasts  than  you,  seeing  that  they 
recognize  their  Lord  and  glorify  him ;  while 
you  men,  who  have  been  made  after  the 
image  and  likeness  of  God,  do  not  know 
him !  Beasts  know  me,  and  are  tame  ;  men 
see  me,  and  do  not  acknowledge  me.'  " 

To  the  mind  of  these  early  Christians  the 
life  of  Jesus  was  compounded  of  holiness 
and  supernatural  power ;  so  far  as  they  dis- 
tinguished these,  the  holiness  was  the  cause 
of  the  power,  and  hence,  when  the  imagina- 
tion fashioned  saints  out  of  men  and  women, 
it  followed  the  same  course  which  it  had 
taken  with  the  Master.  The  childhood  of 
the  saints  was  an  anticipation  of  maturer 
virtues  and  powers,  rather  than  a  manifesta- 
tion of  ingenuous  innocence.  There  was  a 
tendency  to  explain  exceptional  qualities  in 
lives  by  extending  them  backward  into 
youth,  thereby  gaining  for  them  an  apparent 
corroboration.  The  instances  of  this  in  the 
legends  are  frequent.  Mothers,  like  the 
Virgin  Mary,  have  premonitions  that  their 
children  are  to  be  in  some  special  manner 
children  of  God,  and  the  characteristics  of 
later  life  are  foreshadowed  at  birth.     The 


IN  EARLY  CHRISTIANITY  G5 

Virgin  herself  was  thus  dealt  with.  The 
strong  human  feeling  which  subsequently, 
when  the  tenderness  of  Christ  had  been  pet- 
rified into  judgment,  interposed  the  Virgin 
as  mediator,  found  gratification  in  surround- 
ing Mary's  infancy  and  childhood  with  a 
supernatural  grace  and  power,  the  incidents 
in  some  cases  being  fauit  reflections  of  inci- 
dents in  the  life  of  her  son  ;  as  when  we  are 
told  that  Joachim  and  Anna  carried  Mary, 
then  three  years  old,  to  place  her  among  the 
virgins  in  the  temple  of  God.  "  And  when 
she  was  put  down  before  the  doors  of  the 
temple,  she  went  up  the  fifteen  steps  so 
swiftly  that  she  did  not  look  back  at  all ; 
nor  did  she,  as  children  are  wont  to  do,  seek 
for  her  parents.  Whereupon  her  parents, 
each  of  them  anxiously  seeking  for  the  child, 
were  both  alike  astonished  until  they  found 
her  in  the  temple,  and  the  priests  of  the 
temple  themselves  wondered." 

In  like  manner  a  halo  of  light  played 
about  S.  Catherine's  head  when  she  was 
born.  The  year  of  the  birth  of  S.  Elizabeth 
of  Hungary  was  full  of  blessings  to  her  coun- 
try ;  the  first  words  she  uttered  were  those 
of  prayer,  and  when  three  years  old  she  gave 
signs  of  the  charity  which  marked  her  life 


66  CHILDHOOD  IN  LITERATURE 

by  giving  her  toys  and  garments  to  those 
less  fortunate  than  herself.  A  pretty  story 
is  told  of  her  betrothal  to  Prince  Louis  of 
Thuringia,  Herman  of  Thuringia  sent  an 
embassy  to  the  king  of  Hungary,  desiring 
the  little  Elizabeth,  then  only  four  years 
old,  for  his  son  ;  and  the  maiden  accompa- 
nied the  embassy,  carrying  with  her  a  silver 
cradle  and  silver  bath,  which  her  father  had 
given  her.  She  was  betrothed  to  Louis,  and 
the  little  pair  played  happily  together  in  the 
same  cradle.  S.  Genevieve  of  Paris  was 
a  maiden  of  seven,  who  tended  a  flock  of 
sheep  at  the  village  of  Narterre.  Hither 
came  S.  Germain,  and  when  the  inhabitants 
were  assembled  to  receive  his  benediction 
his  eyes  rested  on  the  little  shepherdess,  and 
seeing  her  saintliness  he  set  her  apart  as  a 
bride  of  Christ.  S.  Gregory  Nazianzen  had 
a  dream  when  he  was  a  boy,  in  which  two 
heavenly  virgins  of  celestial  beauty  visited 
him :  they  were  Chastity  and  Temperance, 
and  so  captivating  was  their  presence,  so 
winning  were  their  words,  that  he  awoke  to 
take  perpetual  vows  of  continence.  S.  John 
Chrysostom  was  a  dull  boy  at  school,  and  so 
disturbed  was  he  by  the  ridicule  of  his  fel- 
lows that  he  went  into  a  church  to  pray  to 


IN  EARLY  CHRISTIANITY  67 

the  Virgin  for  help.  A  voice  came  from  the 
image  :  "  Kiss  me  on  the  mouth,  and  thou 
shalt  be  endowed  with  all  learning."  He 
did  this,  and  when  he  returned  to  his  school- 
fellows they  saw  a  golden  circle  about  his 
mouth,  and  his  eloquence  and  brilliancy  as- 
tounded them.  Martyrdom  was  the  portion 
of  these  saintly  children  as  well  as  of  their 
elders.  The  story  is  told  of  Hilarion,  one 
of  the  four  children  of  Saturninus  the  priest, 
that  when  the  proconsul  of  Carthage  thought 
to  have  no  difficulty  in  dealing  with  one  of 
tender  age,  the  child  resisted  all  cajolings 
and  threats.  "  I  am  a  Christian,"  said  the 
little  fellow.  "  I  have  been  at  the  collect 
[that  is,  assisted  as  an  acolyte],  and  it  was 
of  my  own  voluntary  choice,  without  any 
compulsion."  Thereupon  the  proconsul,  who 
was  probably  a  father,  threatened  him,  as 
the  story  runs,  "with  those  little  punish- 
ments with  which  children  are  accustomed 
to  be  chastised,"  but  the  child  only  laughed 
at  the  idea  of  giving  up  his  faith  for  fear  of 
a  whipping.  "  I  will  cut  off  your  nose  and 
ears !  "  shouted  the  exasperated  inquisitor. 
"  You  may  do  it,  but  I  shall  be  a  Christian 
stiU,"  replied  the  undaunted  boy  ;  and  when 
he  was  ordered  off  to  prison  with  the  rest. 


68  CHILDHOOD  IN  LITERATURE 

he  was  heard  to  pipe  forth,  "  God  be 
thanked,"  and  so  was  led  away. 

These  random  incidents  are,  for  the  most 
part,  mainly  anticipatory  of  mature  experi- 
ence. They  can  be  matched  with  the  details 
of  Protestant  hagiology  as  recorded  in  a 
class  of  books  more  common  forty  years  ago 
than  now.  It  is  their  remoteness  that  lends 
a  certain  grace  and  charm  to  them.  The 
life  of  a  little  Christian  in  the  fourth  cen- 
tury is  invested  with  an  attraction  which  is 
wanting  in  the  circumstance  of  some  juvenile 
saint  living  in  the  midst  of  indifferent  scoff- 
ers of  the  early  part  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury. 

Occasionally,  however,  the  legends  inclose 
the  saintly  attributes  in  some  bit  of  romance, 
or  betray  a  simple,  ingenuous  sympathy  with 
childish  nature.  The  legend  of  S.  Kenelm 
has  a  faint  suspicion  of  kinship  with  the 
story  of  the  babes  in  the  wood.  King  Ken- 
wulf  of  Wessex  died,  and  left  two  daugh- 
ters, Cwendrida  and  Burgenilda,  and  a  son 
of  seven  years,  named  Kenelm.  The  elder 
of  the  daughters  wished  the  child  out  of  the 
way,  that  she  might  reign ;  so  she  gave 
money  to  Askbert,  his  guardian,  the  wicked 
uncle  of  the  story,  and  bade  him  privily  slay 


IN  EAELY  CHRISTIANITY  69 

the  boy.  So  Askbert  took  Kenelm  into  a 
wood,  as  if  for  a  hunt,  and  by  and  by  the 
child,  tired  with  the  heat,  fell  asleep  under 
the  shade  of  a  tree.  Askbert,  seeing  his 
time  had  come,  set  to  work  to  dig  a  grave, 
that  all  might  be  in  readiness ;  but  Kenelm 
woke,  and  said,  "  It  is  in  vain  that  you  think 
to  kill  me  here.  I  shall  be  slain  in  another 
spot.  In  token  whereof,  see  this  rod  blos- 
som ; "  and  so  saying,  he  stuck  a  stick  into 
the  ground,  and  it  instantly  took  root  and 
began  to  flower.  In  after  days  it  was  a 
great  ash-tree,  known  as  S.  Kenelm's  ash. 
Then  Askbert  took  the  little  king  to  another 
spot,  and  the  child,  now  wide  awake,  began 
to  sine:  the  Te  Deum.  When  he  came  to  the 
verse,  "  The  noble  army  of  martyrs  praise 
Thee,"  Askbert  cut  off  his  head,  and  then 
buried  him  in  the  wood.  Just  as  he  did 
this,  a  white  dove  flew  into  the  church  of  S. 
Peter  in  Rome,  and  laid  on  the  high  altar  a 
letter,  which  it  bore  in  its  beak.  The  letter 
was  in  English,  and  it  was  some  time  before 
any  one  could  be  found  who  could  read  it. 
Then  it  was  discovered  that  Kenelm  had 
been  killed  and  his  body  hidden  away.  The 
Pope  thereupon  wi-ote  letters  into  England 
telling  of  this   sorry  affair,  and  men  went 


70  CHILDHOOD  IN  LITERATURE 

forth  to  find  the  body  of  the  little  king. 
They  were  led  by  a  pillar  of  light,  which 
stood  over  the  place  where  the  body  lay. 
So  they  bore  it  off  and  buried  it ;  but  they 
built  a  chapel  over  the  spot  where  they  had 
found  the  body,  which  is  known  as  S.  Ken- 
elm's  chapel  to  this  day.  There  the  chapel 
stands  near  Hales  Owen  ;  how  else  did  it 
get  its  name  ?  and  as  Mr.  Freeman  sagely 
remarks,  "  It  is  hard  to  see  what  should 
have  made  anybody  invent  such  a  tale,  if 
nothing  of  the  kind  had  ever  happened." 

Another  of  the  stories  which  has  a  half 
fairy-tale  character  is  that  of  the  martyrdom 
of  the  little  S.  Christina,  who  was  shut  up  in 
a  high  tower  by  her  father,  and  bidden  spend 
her  time  before  gold  and  silver  gods  ;  his  pri- 
vate purpose  being  to  keep  her  out  of  the 
way  of  troublesome  lovers.  Christina  tired 
of  her  divine  playthings,  and  in  spite  of  her 
father's  indidgence,  since  he  obligingly  took 
away  all  the  images  but  three,  would  have 
nothing  to  do  with  false  gods.  She  was  vis- 
ited by  angels  and  instructed  in  Christianity. 
She  combined  courage  in  her  new  faith  with 
a  fine  spirit  of  adventure  ;  for  she  is  repre- 
sented as  smashing  the  idols,  letting  herself 
down  by  a  rope  from  her  tower-prison,  dis* 


IN  EARLY  CHRISTIANITY  71 

tributing  the  fragments  o£  the  idols  among 
the  poor,  and  clambering  up  again  before 
morning.  Her  martyrdom  showed  various 
ingenious  inventions  of  torture,  but  the  odd 
part  of  the  story  is  the  manner  in  which  the 
gold  and  silver  idols  always  suggest  a  girl's 
playthings.  We  are  told  that  when  she  was 
taken  into  the  temple  of  Apollo  she  bade 
the  idol  step  down  and  walk  about  the  tem- 
ple until  she  sent  it  back  to  its  place.  Then.^ 
proceeds  the  story  gravely,  she  was  put  in  a 
cradle  filled  with  boiling  pitch  and  oil,  and 
four  soldiers  were  set  to  rocking  her. 

In  these  and  similar  stories  which  abound 
in  the  Acta  Sanctorum,  the  simple  attributes 
of  childish  nature  rarely  shine  through  the 
more  formal  covering  of  churclily  investiture. 
Nature  could  not  always  be  expelled,  but 
the  imagination,  busy  with  the  construction 
of  the  ideal  Christian  life,  was  more  con- 
cerned, as  time  went  on,  to  make  that  con- 
form to  an  ecclesiastical  standard.  It  is 
pathetic  to  see  the  occasional  struggle  of 
poor  humanity  to  break  through  the  meshes 
in  which  it  was  entangled.  The  life  of  S. 
Francis  of  Assisi  is  full  of  incidents  which 
illustrate  this.  His  familiar  intercourse 
with  birds  and  beasts  was  but  one  of   the 


72  CHILDHOOD'  IN  LITERATURE 

signs  of  an  effort  to  escape  from  the  cage  in 
which  he  was  an  unconscious  prisoner.  One 
night,  we  are  told,  he  rose  suddenly  from 
the  earthen  floor  which  made  his  bed,  and 
rushed  out  into  the  open  air.  A  brother 
monk,  who  was  praying  in  his  cell,  looked 
through  his  window  and  saw  S.  Francis, 
under  the  light  of  the  moon,  fashion  seven 
little  figures  of  snow.  "  Here  is  thy  wife," 
he  said  to  himseK  ;  "  these  four  are  thy  sons 
and  daughters;  the  other  two  are  thy  ser- 
vant and  handmaid :  and  for  all  these  thou 
art  bound  to  provide.  Make  haste,  then, 
and  provide  clothing  for  them,  lest  they 
perish  with  cold.  But  if  the  care  of  so 
many  trouble  thee,  be  thou  careful  to  serve 
the  Lord  alone."  The  injunction  to  give  up 
father  and  mother  and  family  for  the  Lord's 
sake,  when  obeyed  by  one  so  tremulously 
alive  to  human  sympathy  as  was  S.  Francis, 
had  in  it  a  power  suddenly  to  disclose  the 
depths  of  the  human  soul ;  nor  can  it  be 
doubted  that  those  who,  like  S.  Francis, 
were  eagerly  thrusting  aside  everything 
which  seemed  to  stand  between  them  and 
the  realization  of  the  divine  life  paid  heed 
to  the  significant  words  of  the  Lord  which 
made  a  child  the  symbol  of  that  life.     In 


IN  EARLY  CHRISTIANITY  73 

practical  dealing  with  the  evils  of  the  world 
the  early  church  never  lost  sight  of  children. 
Orphans,  especially  the  orphans  of  martyrs, 
were  a  sacred  charge,  and  when  monasteries 
arose  and  became,  at  least  in  the  West, 
centres  of  civilization,  they  were  refuges  for 
foundlings  as  well  as  schools  for  the  yomig. 
It  is  one  of  the  distinct  signs  of  the  higher 
life  which  Christianity  was  slowly  bringing 
into  the  world  that  the  church  adopted  and 
protected  children  as  children,  for  their  own 
sakes.  Foundlings  had  before  been  nur- 
tured for  the  sake  of  profit,  and  we  can 
easily  do  poor  human  nature  the  justice  to 
believe  in  instances  where  pity  and  love  had 
their  honest  sway  ;  but  it  certainly  was  left 
to  the  church  to  incorporate  in  its  very  con- 
stitution that  care  of  helpless  childhood 
which  springs  from  a  profound  sense  of  the 
dignity  of  life,  and  a  growing  conviction  of 
the  rights  which  pertain  to  personality. 

For  the  history  of  Christianity  is  in  the 
development  of  personality,  and  childhood 
has,  from  the  beginning,  come  under  the 
influence  of  a  power  which  has  been  at  work 
lifting  the  world  into  a  recognition  of  its 
relation  to  God.  It  was  impossible  that  the 
few  significant    words    spoken    by    Christ 


74         CHILDHOOD  IN  LITERATURE 

should  be  forgotten ;  nevertheless,  they  do 
not  seem  to  have  impressed  themselves  upon 
the  consciousness  of  men.  At  least  it  may 
be  said  that  in  the  growth  of  Latin  Chris- 
tianity they  do  not  come  forward  specifically 
as  furnishing  the  ground  and  reason  for  a 
regard  for  childhood.  The  work  to  be  done 
by  the  Latin  church  was  largely  one  of 
organizing  human  society  under  an  anthro- 
pomorphic conception  of  God.  It  gave  a 
certain  fixed  objectivity  to  God,  placed  him 
at  a  distance  from  the  world,  and  made  the 
approach  to  him  to  be  by  a  succession  of 
intermediary  agents.  Nevertheless,  the  hier- 
archy which  resulted  rested  upon  ethical 
foundations.  The  whole  grand  scheme  did, 
in  effect,  rivet  and  fix  the  sense  of  personal 
responsibility  and  personal  integrity.  It 
made  each  man  and  woman  aware  of  his  and 
her  relation  to  law  in  the  person  of  its  min- 
isters, and  this  law  was  a  law  which  reached 
to  the  thoughts  of  the  heart. 

The  system,  as  such,  had  little  to  do  with 
childhood.  It  waited  for  its  close,  but  it 
pushed  back  its  influence  over  the  line  of 
adolescence,  making  as  early  as  might  be 
the  day  when  the  child  should  come  into 
conscious  relation  with  the  church.     Through 


IN  EARLY  CHRISTIANITY  75 

the  family,  however,  it  powerfully  affected 
the  condition  of  childhood,  for  by  its  laws 
and  its  ritual  it  was  giving  religious  sanction 
to  the  family,  even  while  it  was  gradually 
divorcing  itself  from  humanity  under  plea 
of  a  sanctity  which  was  more  than  human. 
Its  conception  of  a  religious  devotedness 
which  was  too  good  for  this  world,  whereby 
contempt  of  the  body  was  put  in  place  of 
redemption  of  the  body,  and  celibacy  made 
more  honorable  than  marriage,  undermined 
its  hold  upon  the  world,  which  it  sought  to 
govern  and  to  furnish  with  ideals. 

Inasmuch  as  this  great  system  dealt  with 
persons  in  relations  which  could  be  exactly 
defined  and  formulated,  it  would  be  idle  to 
seek  in  the  literature  which  reflects  it  for 
any  considerable  representation  of  that  pe- 
riod of  human  life  in  which  the  forms  are  as 
yet  undetermined.  Nevertheless,  childhood 
exercises  even  here  its  subtle  power  of  recall- 
ing men  to  elemental  truths.  Dante  was 
the  prophet  of  a  spiritual  Kome,  which  he 
saw  in  his  vision  outlined  against  the  back- 
ground of  the  existing  hierarchy.  It  would 
be  in  vain  to  search  through  the  Divine 
Comedy  for  many  references  to  childhood. 
As  he  says  himself  in  the  Inferno,  — 


76  CHILDHOOD  IN  LITERATURE 

"  For  this  is  not  a  sportive  enterprise 

To  speak  the  universe's  lowest  hold, 
Nor  suits  a  tongue  that  Pa  and  Mammy  cries."  ^ 

And  the  only  picture  of  childhood  in  that 
vision  is  the  melancholy  one  of  the  horrid 
sufferings  of  Count  Ugolino  and  his  chil- 
dren in  the  Tower  of  Hunger.  In  the  Par- 
adiso  there  are  two  passages  of  interest. 
Near  the  close  of  the  twenty-seventh  canto, 
Beatrice,  breaking  forth  into  a  rapt  utter- 
ance of  the  divine  all  in  all,  suddenly  checks 
herself  as  she  remembers  how  the  curse  of 
covetousness  shuts  men  out  from  entrance 
into  the  full  circle  of  divine  movement,  and 
then,  with  a  swift  and  melancholy  survey  of 
the  changes  in  human  life,  cries  bitterly  :  — 

"  Faith,  Art,  and  Innocence  are  found  alone 
With  little  children ;  then  they  scatter  fast 

Before  the  down  across  the  cheek  have  grown. 

There  is  that  lispeth,  and  doth  learn  to  fast. 
Who  afterward,  with  tongue  untied  from  May 

To  April,  down  his  throat  all  meats  will  cast. 

There  is  that,  lisping,  loveth  to  obey 

His  mother,  and  he  '11  wish  her  in  the  tomb, 

When  sentences  unbroken  he  can  say." 

Again,  in  the  thirty-second   canto,  S.    Ber- 
nard is  pointing  out  the  circles  of  the  Rose, 
and   after   denoting   the    degrees  of   saints 
before  Christ  and  after,  proceeds  :  — 
1  Canto  xxxii.  7-9,  Cayley's  translation. 


IN  EARLY  CHRISTIANITY  77 

"  And  from  the  seats,  in  midway  rank,  that  knit 

These  double  files,  and  downwards,  thou  wilt  find 

That  none  do  for  their  own  deserving  sit, 

But  for  another's  under  terms  assigned  ; 
For  every  one  of  these  hath  been  set  free 

Ere  truly  self-determined  was  the  mind. 

This  by  the  childish  features  wilt  thou  see. 
If  well  thou  scan  them,  and  if  well  thou  list 

Wilt  hear  it  by  the  childlike  symphony." 

Dante  is  perplexed  by  the  difference  even 
in  these  innocent  babes,  but  S.  Bernard 
reminds  him  that  there  is  difference  in  en- 
dowment, but  that  all  are  subject  to  the 
divine  all-embracing  law  :  — 

"  And  therefore  these,  who  took  such  hasty  flight, 
Into  the  true  life  not  without  a  cause 
Are  entered  so,  these  more,  and  those  less,  bright,"  — 

an  interpretation  of  the  vision  which  is 
really  less  scholastic  than  suggested  by  the 
deeper  insight  of  the  poetic  mind. 

The  most  significant  passage,  however,  is 
found  in  the  famous  words  at  the  beginning 
of  the  Vita  Nuova,  which  fix  Dante's  first 
sight  of  Beatrice  when  he  was  nine  years  old. 
"  And  since,"  he  closes,  "  to  dwell  upon  the 
passions  and  actions  of  such  early  youth 
seems  like  telling  an  idle  tale,  I  will  leave 
them,  and,  passing  over  many  things  which 
might  be   drawn   from   the  original  where 


78  CHILDHOOD  IN  LITERATURE 

these  lie  hidden,  I  will  come  to  those  words 
which  are  written  in  my  memory  under 
larger  paragraphs."  ^  In  these  last  words 
is  apparent  Dante's  own  judgment  upon  the 
worth  of  his  recollections  of  childhood  :  one 
page  only  in  that  book  of  his  memory  he 
deems  worthy  of  regard,  —  the  page  upon 
which  fell  the  image  of  Beatrice.  It  will  be 
said  with  truth  that  the  childhood  of  Dante 
and  Beatrice  is  in  reality  the  beginning  of 
maturity,  for  it  is  counted  only  as  the  initia- 
tion of  a  noble  passion.  The  time,  indeed, 
had  not  yet  come  in  the  history  of  human 
life  when  the  recollection  of  that  which  is 
most  distinctive  of  childhood  forms  the  basis 
of  speculation  and  philosophic  dream. 

The  absence  of  childhood  from  the  visions 
of  Dante  is  a  negative  witness  to  the  absence 
from  the  world,  in  the  age  prior  to  the  Re- 
naissance, of  hope  and  of  simple  faith  and 
innocence.  Dante's  faint  recognition  of  these 
qualities  throws  them  back  into  a  quicldy 
forgotten  and  outgrown  childhood.  The  lisp- 
ing child  becomes  the  greedy  worldling,  the 
cruel  and  unloving  man,  and  the  tyranny  of 
an  empire  of  souls  is  hinted  at  in  the  justifi- 
cation by  the  poet  of  the  presence  of  inno- 
^  C.  E.  Norton's  translation. 


IN  EARLY  CHRISTIANITY  79 

cent  babes  in  Paradise ;  they  are  there  by 
the  interposition  of  a  sacrificial  act.  The 
poet  argues  to  still  the  doubts  of  men  at  find- 
ing these  children  in  Paradise.  It  would 
almost  seem  as  if  the  words  had  been  forgot- 
ten which  characterized  heaven  through  the 
very  image  of  childhood. 

Indeed,  it  is  not  to  be  wondered  at  that 
childhood  was  little  regarded  by  an  age 
which  found  its  chief  interest  in  a  thought 
of  death.  "  Even  the  gay  and  licentious 
Boccaccio,"  we  are  reminded  by  Mr.  Pater, 
"  gives  a  keener  edge  to  his  stories  by  put- 
ting them  in  the  mouths  of  a  party  of  people 
who  had  taken  refuge  from  the  plague  in 
a  coimtry  house."  ^  The  great  Florentine 
work  was  executed  under  this  dominant 
thought  ;  nevertheless,  an  art  which  is 
largely  concerned  about  tombs  and  sepul- 
chral monuments  implies  an  overweening 
pride  in  life  and  a  weightier  sense  of  the 
years  of  earth.  The  theology  which  had  fur- 
nished the  panoply  within  which  the  human 
soul  was  fighting  its  battle  emphasized  the 
idea  of  time,  and  made  eternity  itself  a  pro- 
longation of  hmnan  conditions.  The  imag- 
ination, at  work  upon  a  futiu'e,  constructed 
^  Studies  in  the  History  of  the  Renaissance,  p.  84. 


80  CHILDHOOD  IN  LITERATURE 

it  out  of  the  hard  materials  of  the  present, 
and  was  always  looking  for  some  substantial 
bridge  which  should  connect  the  two  worlds  ; 
seeing  decay  and  change  here,  it  transferred 
empires  and  powers  to  the  other  side  of  the 
gulf,  and  sought  to  reerect  them  upon  an 
everlasting  basis. 

Such  thought  had  little  in  common  with 
the  hope,  the  fearlessness,  the  faith,  of  child- 
hood, and  thus  childhood  as  an  image  had 
largely  faded  out  of  art  and  literature.  One 
only  great  exception  there  was,  - —  the  repre- 
sentation in  art  of  the  child  Jesus  ;  and  in 
the  successive  phases  of  this  representation 
may  be  read  a  remarkable  history  of  the 
human  soul. 


IN  MEDLffiVAL   ART 

The  power  of  Christianity  lies  in  its 
prophecy  of  universality,  and  the  most  sig- 
nificant note  of  this  power  is  in  its  compre- 
hension of  the  poor  and  the  weak,  not 
merely  as  the  objects  of  a  benediction  pro- 
ceeding from  some  external  society,  but  as 
themselves  constituent  members  of  that 
society,  sharing  in  all  its  rights  and  fulfill- 
ing its  functions.  When  the  last  great 
prophet  of  Israel  and  forerunner  of  Judaic 
Christianity  sent  to  inquire  what  evidence 
Jesus  of  Nazareth  could  give  that  he  was 
the  Christ,  the  answer  which  came  back  had 
the  conclusive  words,  "  To  the  poor  the  gos- 
pel is  preached."  The  same  Jesus,  when  he 
would  give  his  immediate  followers  the  com- 
pletest  type  of  the  kingdom  which  was  to 
prevail  throughout  the  world,  took  a  child, 
and  set  him  in  the  midst  of  them.  There 
is  no  hardly  gained  position  in  the  devel- 
opment of  human  society  which   may   not 


82  CHILDHOOD   IN  ART 

find  its  genetic  idea  in  some  word  or  act  of 
the  Son  of  Man,  and  the  proem  to  the  great 
song  of  an  expectant  democracy  is  in  the 
brief  hour  of  the  first  Christian  society, 
which  held  all  things  in  common. 

The  sketch  of  a  regenerated  human  so- 
ciety, contained  in  the  New  Testament,  has 
been  long  in  filling  out,  and  the  day  which 
the  first  generation  of  Christians  thought  so 
near  at  hand  has  thus  far  had  only  a  succes- 
sion of  proleptic  appearances ;  but  from  the 
first  the  note  of  the  power  of  Christianity, 
which  lies  in  the  recognition  of  poverty  and 
weakness,  has  never  been  wanting,  and  has 
been  most  loudly  struck  in  the  great  epochs 
of  Christian  revival.  In  the  struggle  after 
purity  of  associated  life,  which  had  its  wit- 
ness in  the  orders  of  the  church,  poverty 
was  accepted  as  a  necessary  condition,  and 
the  constructive  genius  of  the  human  mind, 
dealing  with  the  realities  of  Christian  faith, 
rose  to  its  highest  point  in  presenting,  not 
the  maturity,  but  the  infancy  of  Jesus 
Christ.  Each  age  offers  its  contribution  to 
the  perfection  of  the  Christian  ideal,  and 
while,  in  the  centuries  lying  on  either  side 
of  the  Renaissance,  the  church  as  an  ecclesi- 
astical system  was  enforcing  the  dogma  of 


IN  MEDIMVAL  ART  83 

mediatorial  sacrifice  as  something  outside  of 
humanity,  the  spirit  of  God,  in  the  person 
of  great  painters,  was  drawing  the  thoughts 
of  men  to  the  redemption  of  the  world, 
which  lies  in  the  most  sacred  of  human  rela- 
tions. The  great  efflorescence  of  art,  which 
we  recognize  as  the  gift  of  these  centuries, 
has  left  as  its  most  distinctive  memorial  the 
type  of  Christianity  expressed  in  the  Ma- 
donna. 


In  the  Holy  Family  the  child  is  the  essen- 
tial figure.  In  the  earliest  examples  of  the 
mother  and  child,  both  Mary  and  Jesus  are 
conceived  as  symbols  of  religious  faith,  and 
the  attitude  of  the  child  is  unchildlike,  being 
that  of  a  dispenser  of  blessings  with  uplifted 
hand.  The  group  is  not  distinctly  of  the 
mother  and  child,  but  of  the  Virgin  and  the 
Saviour,  the  Saviour  being  represented  as 
a  child  in  order  to  indicate  the  ground  of 
the  adoration  paid  to  the  Virgin.  They 
stand  before  one  as  possessed  of  coordinate 
dignity.  It  is  a  curious  and  suggestive  fact 
that  the  Byzantine  tj^e  of  the  Madonna, 
which  rarely  departed  much  from  this  sym- 
bolic treatment,  has   continued  to   be   the 


84  CHILDHOOD  IN  ART 

preference  of  those  whose  conceptions  of  the 
religious  life  are  most  closely  identified  with 
a  remote  sacramentarianism.  The  Italian 
lemonade-seller  has  a  Byzantine  Madonna 
in  his  booth ;  the  Belgian  churches  aboimd 
in  so-called  sacred  pictures ;  the  Russian 
merchant  salutes  an  icon  of  the  same  type  ; 
and  the  ritualistic  enthusiast  of  the  Angli- 
can revival  modifies  his  aesthetic  views  by 
his  religious  sympathy,  and  stops  short  in 
his  admiration  with  Cimabue  and  Giotto. 

In  the  development  of  the  Madonna  from 
its  first  form  as  a  rigid  symbol  to  its  latest 
as  a  realistic  representation  of  motherhood, 
we  are  aware  of  a  change  in  the  minds  of 
the  people  who  worship  before  the  altars 
where  the  pictures  are  placed,  and  in  the 
minds  of  the  painters  who  produce  the 
almost  endless  variations  on  this  theme. 
The  worshipper,  dispossessed  of  a  belief  in 
the  fatherhood  of  God,  came  to  take  refuge 
in  the  motherhood  of  Mary.  Formally 
taught  the  wrath  of  God,  he  found  in  the 
familiar  relation  of  mother  and  child  the 
most  complete  type  vouchsafed  to  him  of 
that  love  which  the  church  by  many  infor- 
mal ways  bade  him  believe  lay  somewhere 
in  the  divine  life. 


IN  MEDIEVAL  ART  85 

Be  this  as  it  may,  the  treatment  of  the 
subject  in  a  domestic  and  historical  form 
followed  the  treatment  in  a  religious  and 
ecclesiological  mode.  In  the  earlier  repre- 
sentations of  the  Madonna  there  was  a  two- 
fold thought  exhibited.  The  mother  was 
the  queen  of  heaven,  and  she  derived  her 
dignity  from  the  child  on  her  knee.  Hence 
she  is  sometimes  shown  adoring  the  child, 
and  the  child  looks  up  into  the  mother's 
face  with  his  finger  on  his  lip,  expressive  of 
the  utterance,  I  am  the  Word.  This  adora- 
tion of  the  child  by  the  mother  was,  however, 
but  a  transient  phase :  the  increasing  wor- 
ship paid  to  the  Virgin  forbade  that  she 
should  be  so  subordinated ;  and  in  the  grad- 
ual expansion  of  the  theme,  by  which  saints 
and  martyrs  and  angels  were  grouped  in  at>- 
tendant  ministry,  more  and  more  importance 
was  attached  to  the  person  of  the  Virgin. 
The  child  looks  up  in  wonder  and  affec- 
tionate admiration.  He  caresses  her,  and 
offers  her  a  child's  love  mingled  with  a 
divine  being's  calm  seK-content. 

For  throughout  the  whole  period  of  the 
religious  presentation  of  the  Madonna,  even 
when  the  Madonna  herself  is  conspicuously 
the  occasion  of  the  picture,  we  may  observe 


86  CHILDHOOD  IN  ART 

the  influence  of  the  child,  —  an  influence 
sometimes  subtle,  sometimes  open  and  mani- 
fest. It  is  not  enough  to  say  that  this  child 
is  Jesus,  as  it  is  not  enough  to  say  that  the 
mother  is  the  Virgin  Mary.  The  divine 
child  is  the  sign  of  an  ever-present  child- 
hood in  humanity ;  the  divine  mother  the 
sign  of  a  love  which  the  religion  of  Chris- 
tianity never  wholly  forgot.  The  common 
imagination  was  perpetually  seeking  to  re- 
lieve Mary  and  Jesus  of  all  attributes  which 
interfered  with  the  central  and  inhering  re- 
lation of  mother  and  child :  through  this 
type  of  love  the  mind  apprehended  the  gos- 
pel of  Christianity  as  in  no  other  way. 

Indeed,  this  apotheosis  of  childhood  and 
maternity  is  at  the  core  of  the  religion  of 
hope  which  was  inclosed  in  the  husk  of 
mediaeval  Christianity,  and  it  was  made  the 
theme  of  many  variations.  Before  it  had 
ceased  to  be  a  symbol  of  worship,  it  was  of- 
fering a  nucleus  for  the  expression  of  a  more 
varied  human  hope  and  interest.  The  Holy 
Family  in  the  hands  of  painters  and  sculp- 
tors, and  the  humbler  class  of  designers 
which  sprang  into  notice  with  the  intro- 
duction of  printing  and  engraving,  becomes 
more  and  more  emblematic  of  a  pure  and 


IN  MEDIEVAL  ART  87 

happy  domestic  group.  Joseph  is  more  fre- 
quently introduced,  and  John  Baptist  ap- 
pears as  a  playmate  of  the  child  Jesus ; 
sometimes  they  are  seen  walking  in  compan- 
ionship. Certain  incidents  in  later  life  are 
symbolically  prefigured  in  the  realistic  treat- 
ment of  homely  scenes,  as  in  the  Madonna 
by  Giulio  Romano,  where  the  child  stands 
in  a  basin,  while  the  young  S.  John  pours 
water  upon  him,  Mary  washes  him,  S.  Eliz- 
abeth stands  by  holding  a  towel,  and  S. 
Joseph  watches  the  scene,  —  an  evident  pre- 
figurement  of  the  baptism  in  the  Jordan. 
Or  again,  Mary,  seated,  holds  the  infant 
Christ  between  her  knees ;  Elizabeth  leans 
over  the  back  of  the  chair ;  Joseph  rests 
on  his  staff  behind  the  Virgin  ;  the  little 
S.  John  and  an  angel  present  grapes,  while 
four  other  angels  are  gathering  and  bring- 
ing them.  By  such  a  scene  Ippolito  An- 
dreasi  would  remind  people  that  Jesus  is 
the  true  vine. 

II 

The  recognition  of  childhood  as  the  heart 
of  the  family  is  discoverable  even  more  em- 
phatically in  the  art  of  the  northern  peo- 
ple, among  whom  domestic  life  always  had 


88  CHILDHOOD  IN  ART 

greater  respect.  It  may  seem  a  trivial  rea- 
son, but  I  suspect  nature  holds  the  family 
more  closely  together  in  cold  countries, 
which  compel  much  indoor  and  fireside  life, 
than  in  lands  which  tempt  to  vagrancy.  At 
any  rate,  the  fact  remains  that  the  Germanic 
peoples  have  been  home-cultivating.  It  did 
not  need  the  Roman  Tacitus  to  find  this  out, 
but  his  testimony  helps  us  to  believe  that 
the  disposition  was  a  radical  one,  which 
Christianity  reinforced  rather  than  im- 
planted. Lord  Lindsay  makes  the  pregnant 
observation,  "  Our  Saviour's  benediction  of 
the  little  children  as  a  subject  [is]  from 
first  to  last  Teutonic,  —  I  scarcely  recollect 
a  single  Italian  instance  of  it ;  "  ^  and  in  the 
revival  of  religious  art,  at  which  Overbeck 
and  Cornelius  assisted,  this  and  similar  sub- 
jects, by  their  frequency,  mark  a  differen- 
tiation from  art  south  of  the  Alps,  whose 
traditions,  nevertheless,  the  German  school 
was  consciously  following. 

Although  of  a  period  subsequent  to  the 
Eenaissance,  an  excellent  illustration  of  the 
religious  representation  of  the  childhood  of 
Jesus  in  northern  art  is  contained  in  a  series 
of  twelve  prints  executed  in  the  Netherlands, 

^  Sketches  of  the  History  of  Christian  Art,  iii.  270. 


IN  MEDIEVAL  ART  89 

and  described  in  detail  by  Mrs.  Jameson.^ 
The  series  is  entitled  The  Infancy  of  our 
Lord  God  and  Saviour  Jesus  Christ,  and 
the  title-page  is  surrounded  by  a  border 
composed  of  musical  instrimients,  spinning- 
wheels,  distaffs,  and  other  implements  of 
female  industry,  intermixed  with  all  kinds 
of  masons'  and  carpenters'  tools.  In  the  first 
of  the  prints,  the  figure  of  Christ  is  seen  in 
a  glory,  surrounded  by  cherubim.  In  the 
second,  the  Virgin  is  seated  on  the  hill  of 
Sion  ;  the  infant  in  her  lap,  with  outspread 
arms,  looks  up  to  a  choir  of  angels,  and  is 
singing  with  them.  In  the  third,  Jesus  slum- 
bering in  his  cradle  is  rocked  by  two  angels, 
while  Mary  sits  by,  engaged  in  needlework. 
Beneath  is  a  lullaby  in  Latin  which  has 
been  translated :  — 

"  Sleep,  sweet  babe  I  my  cares  beguiling, 
Mother  sits  beside  thee,  smiling, 

Sleep  my  darling,  tenderly  ! 
If  thou  sleep  not,  mother  moumeth 
Singing  as  her  wheel  she  tumeth, 

Come  soft  slumber,  balmily  !  " 

The  fourth  shows  the  interior  of  a  carpen- 
ter's shop  :  Joseph  is  plying  his  work,  while 
Joachim  stands  near  him ;  the  Virgin  is 
measuring  linen,  and  S.  Anna  looks  on ; 
^  Legends  of  the  Madonna,  Part  III. 


90  CHILDHOOD  IN  ART 

two  angels  are  at  play  with  the  infant  Christ, 
who  is  blowing  soap-bubbles.  In  the  fifth 
picture,  Mary  prepares  the  family  meal, 
while  Joseph  is  in  the  background  chopping 
wood  ;  more  in  front,  Jesus  sweeps  together 
the  chips,  and  two  angels  gather  them.  In 
the  sixth,  Mary  is  seen  reeling  off  a  skein  of 
thread ;  Joseph  is  squaring  a  plank ;  Jesus 
is  picking  up  chips,  again  assisted  by  two 
angels.  The  seventh  shows  Mary  seated  at 
her  spinning-wheel ;  Joseph,  aided  by  Jesus, 
is  sawing  through  a  large  beam,  the  two 
angels  standing  by.  The  eighth  is  some- 
what similar :  Mary  holds  her  distaff,  while 
Joseph  saws  a  beam  on  which  Jesus  stands, 
and  the  two  angels  help  in  the  work.  In 
the  ninth  print,  Joseph  is  busy  building  the 
framework  of  a  house,  assisted  by  one  of 
the  angels  ;  Jesus  is  boring  with  a  large 
gimlet,  the  other  angel  helping  him ;  and 
Mary  winds  thread.  In  the  next,  Joseph  is 
at  work  roofing  the  house ;  Jesus,  in  com- 
pany with  the  angels,  carries  a  beam  up  the 
ladder ;  while  below,  in  front,  Mary  is  card- 
ing wool  or  flax.  The  eleventh  transfers 
the  work,  with  an  apparent  adaptation  to 
Holland,  to  the  building  of  a  boat,  where 
Joseph  is  helped  by  Jesus,  who  holds  a  ham- 


IN  MEDIEVAL  ART  91 

mer  and  chisel,  still  attended  by  the  angels ; 
the  Virgin  is  knitting  a  stocking,  and  the 
newly  built  house  is  seen  in  the  background. 
In  the  last  of  the  series,  Joseph  is  erecting 
a  fence  round  a  garden ;  Jesus,  with  the 
help  of  the  angels,  is  fastening  the  palings 
together ;  while  Mary  is  weaving  garlands 
of  roses. 

Here  is  a  reproduction  of  the  childhood 
of  the  Saviour  in  the  terms  of  a  homely 
Netherland  family  life,  the  naturalistic  treat- 
ment diversified  by  the  use  of  angelic  ma- 
chinery. The  prints  were  a  part  of  the  ap- 
paratus used  by  the  priests  in  educating  the 
people.  However  such  instruction  may  have 
fallen  short  of  the  highest  truths  of  Chris- 
tianity, its  recognition  of  the  simple  duties 
of  life  and  its  enforcement  of  these  by  the 
example  of  the  Son  of  Man  make  us  slow  to 
regard  such  interposition  of  the  church  as 
remote  from  the  spirit  of  Christ.  If,  as  is 
quite  possible,  these  prints  were  employed 
by  the  Jesuits,  then  their  significance  be- 
comes doubly  noticeable.  In  that  vigorous 
attempt  by  Loyola  and  his  order  to  main- 
tain an  organic  Christian  unity  against  the 
apparent  disruption  of  Christianity,  such  a 
mode  as  this  would  find  a  place  as  serving 


92  CHILDHOOD  IN  ART 

to  emphasize  that  connection  between  the 
church  and  the  family  which  the  Jesuits  in- 
stinctively felt  to  be  essential  to  the  suprem- 
acy of  the  former. 


Ill 

Whatever  light  the  treatment  of  the  Ma- 
donna subject  may  throw  upon  the  ages  in 
which  it  is  uppermost  in  men's  thoughts, 
the  common  judgment  is  sound  which  looks 
for  the  most  significance  in  the  works  of 
Raphael.  Even  those  who  turn  severely 
away  from  him,  and  seek  for  purer  art  in 
his  predecessors,  must  needs  use  his  name 
as  one  of  epochal  consequence.  So  many 
forces  of  the  age  meet  in  Raphael,  who  was 
peculiarly  open  to  influences,  that  no  other 
painter  can  so  well  be  chosen  as  an  expo- 
nent of  the  idea  of  the  time  ;  and  as  one 
passes  in  review  the  successive  Madonnas, 
one  may  not  only  detect  the  influence  of 
Perugino,  of  Leonardo,  of  Michelangelo, 
and  other  masters,  but  may  see  the  ripen- 
ing of  a  mind,  upon  which  fell  the  spirit 
of  the  age,  busy  with  other  things  than 
painting. 

Of  the  early  Madonnas  of  Raphael,  it  is 


IN  MEDIEVAL  ART  93 

noticeable  how  many  present  the  Virgin 
engaged  in  reading  a  book,  while  the  child 
is  occupied  in  other  ways,  sometimes  even 
seeking  to  interrupt  the  mother  and  disen- 
gage her  attention.  Thus  in  one  in  the 
Berlin  museum,  which  is  formal,  though 
unaffected,  Mary  reads  a  book,  while  the 
child  plays  with  a  goldfinch  ;  in  the  Ma- 
donna in  the  Casa  Connestabile,  at  Perugia, 
the  child  plays  with  the  leaves  of  the  book  ; 
in  the  Madonna  del  Cardellino,  the  little  S. 
John  presents  a  goldfinch  to  Jesus,  and  the 
mother  looks  away  from  her  book  to  observe 
the  children;  in  that  at  Berlin,  which  is 
from  the  Casa  Colonna,  the  child  is  held  on 
the  mother's  knee  in  a  somewhat  struggling 
attitude,  and  has  his  left  hand  upon  the  top 
of  her  dress,  near  her  neck,  his  right  upon 
her  shoulder,  while  the  mother,  with  a  look 
of  maternal  tenderness,  holds  the  book  aside. 
In  the  middle  period  of  Raphael's  work  this 
motive  appears  once  at  least  in  the  St. 
Petersburg  Madonna,  which  is  a  quiet  land- 
scape-scene, where  the  child  is  in  the  Ma- 
donna's lap :  she  holds  a  book,  which  she 
has  just  been  reading ;  the  little  S.  John 
kneels  before  his  divine  companion  with 
uifantine   grace,   and    offers    him   a   cross, 


94  CHILDHOOD  IN  ART 

which  he  receives  with  a  look  of  tender 
love ;  the  Madonna's  eyes  are  directed  to 
the  prophetic  play  of  the  children  with  a 
deep,  earnest  expression. 

The  use  of  the  book  is  presumably  to 
denote  the  Madonna's  piety;  and  in  the 
earlier  pictures  she  is  not  only  the  object  of 
adoration  to  the  worshipper,  who  sees  her  in 
her  earthly  form,  yet  endowed  with  sinless 
grace,  but  the  object  also  of  interest  to  the 
child,  who  sees  in  her  the  mother.  This 
reciprocal  relation  of  mother  and  child  is 
sometimes  expressed  with  great  force,  as  in 
the  Madonna  della  Casa  Tempi,  in  the  Pin- 
acothek  at  Munich,  where  the  Virgin,  who 
is  standing,  tenderly  presses  the  child's  head 
against  her  face,  while  he  appears  to  whis- 
per words  of  endearment.  In  these  and 
other  of  the  earlier  Madonnas  of  Raphael, 
there  is  an  enthusiasm,  and  a  dreamy  senti- 
ment which  seems  to  seek  expression  chiefly 
through  the  representation  of  holy  woman- 
hood, the  child  being  a  part  of  the  interpre- 
tation of  the  mother.  The  mystic  solemnity 
of  the  subject  is  relieved  by  a  lightness  of 
touch,  which  was  the  irrepressible  assertion 
of  a  strong  human  feeling. 

Later,  in  what  is  called  his  middle  period, 


IN  MEDIEVAL  ART  95 

a  cheerfulness  and  happy  contemplation  of 
life  pervade  Raphael's  work,  as  in  the 
Bridgewater  Madonna,  where  the  child, 
stretched  in  the  mother's  lap,  looks  up  with 
a  graceful  and  lively  action,  and  fixes  his 
eyes  upon  her  in  deep  thought,  while  she 
looks  back  with  maternal,  reverent  joy. 
The  Madonna  of  the  Chair  illustrates  the 
same  general  sentiment,  where  the  mother 
appears  as  a  beautiful  and  blooming  woman, 
looking  out  of  the  picture  in  the  tranquil 
enjoyment  of  motherly  love  ;  the  child,  full 
and  strong  in  form,  leans  upon  her  bosom 
in  a  child's  careless  attitude,  the  picture  of 
trust  and  content. 

The  works  of  Raphael's  third  period,  and 
those  executed  by  his  pupils  in  a  spirit  and 
with  a  touch  which  leave  them  sometimes 
hardly  distinguishable  from  the  master's, 
show  a  profounder  penetration  of  life,  and 
at  the  same  time  a  firmer,  more  reasonable 
apprehension  of  the  divinity  which  lies  in- 
closed in  the  subject.  Mary  is  now  some- 
thing more  than  a  young  man's  dream  of 
virginal  purity  and  maternal  tenderness, — 
she  is  also  the  blessed  among  women ;  the 
infant  Christ  is  not  only  the  innocent,  play- 
ful cliild,  but  the  prophetic  soul,  conscious 


96  CHILDHOOD  IN  ART 

of  his  divinity  and  his  destiny.  These  char- 
acteristics pervade  both  the  treatment  which 
regards  them  as  historic  personages  and  that 
which  invests  them  with  adorable  attributes 
as  having  their  throne  in  heaven.  The 
Holy  Family  is  interpreted  in  a  large, 
serious,  and  dignified  manner,  and  in  the 
exalted,  worshipped  Madonna  there  is  a  like 
vision  of  things  eternal  seen  through  the 
human  form. 

To  illustrate  this  an  example  may  be 
taken  of  each  class.  The  Madonna  del  Pas- 
segio,  in  the  Bridgewater  gallery,  is  a  well- 
known  composition,  which  represents  the  Ma- 
donna and  child  walking  through  a  field ; 
Joseph  is  in  advance,  and  has  turned  to  look 
for  the  others.  They  have  been  stopped 
by  the  infant  S.  John  Baptist,  clad  in  a 
rough  skin,  who  presses  eagerly  forward  to 
kiss  Jesus.  The  mother  places  a  restrain- 
ing hand  upon  the  shoulders  of  S.  John, 
and  half  withdraws  the  child  Jesus  from  his 
embrace.  A  classic  grace  marks  Jesus,  who 
looks  steadfastly  into  the  eyes  of  the  impas- 
sioned John.  The  three  figures  in  the  prin- 
cipal group  are  conceived  in  a  noble  manner : 
S.  John,  prophesying  in  his  face  the  discov- 
ery  of   the  Lamb  of  God ;  Mary,  looking 


IN  MEDIEVAL  ART  97 

down  with  a  sweet  gravity  which  marks  the 
holy  children,  and  woidd  separate  Jesus  as 
somethinof  more  than  human  from  too  close 
fellowship  with  John ;  Jesus  himself,  a  pic- 
ture of  glorious  childhood,  with  a  far-reach- 
ing look  in  his  eye,  as  he  gently  thrusts 
back  the  mother  with  one  hand,  and  with 
the  other  lays  hold  of  the  cross  which  John 
bears. 

On  the  other  hand,  an  example  of  the 
treatment  of  the  adorable  Madonna  is  that 
of  San  Sisto,  in  the  Dresden  gallery.  It 
is  not  necessary  to  dwell  on  the  details  of 
a  picture  which  rises  at  once  to  every  one's 
mind.  The  circumstance  of  innumerable 
angels'  heads,  of  the  attendant  S.  Sixtus 
and  S.  Barbara,  the  sweep  of  cloud  and 
drapery,  the  suggestion  of  depths  below  and 
of  heights  above,  of  heaven  itself  listening 
at  the  Madonna's  feet,  —  all  these  translate 
the  mother  and  babe  with  ineffable  sweet- 
ness and  dignity  into  a  heavenly  place,  and 
make  them  the  centre  of  the  spiritual  uni- 
verse. Yet  in  all  this  Raphael  has  rested 
his  art  in  no  elaborate  use  of  celestial 
machinery.  He  has  taken  the  simple,  ele- 
mental relation,  and  invested  it  with  its  eter- 
nal properties.     He  gives  not  a  supernatural 


98  CHILDHOOD  IN  ART 

and  transcendent  mother  and  child,  but  a 
glorified  humanity.  Therefore  it  is  that 
this  picture,  and  with  it  the  other  great  Ma- 
donnas of  Raphael,  may  be  taken  entirely 
away  from  altar  and  sanctuary,  and  placed 
in  the  shrine  of  the  household.  The  univer- 
sality of  the  appeal  is  seen  in  the  unhesitat- 
ing adoption  of  the  Sistine  Madonna  as  an 
expression  of  religious  art  by  those  who  are 
even  antagonistic  to  the  church  which  called 
it  forth. 

IV. 

The  concentration  of  Raphael's  genius  to 
so  large  an  extent  upon  the  subject  of  the 
Madonna  was  not  a  mere  accident  of  the 
time,  nor,  when  classic  forms  were  renewing 
their  power,  was  it  a  solecism.  The  spirit 
of  the  Renaissance  entered  profoundly  into 
Raphael's  work,  and  determined  powerfully 
the  direction  which  it  took.  When  he  was 
engaged  upon  purely  classic  themes,  it  is 
interesting  to  see  how  frequently  he  turned 
to  the  forms  of  children.  His  decorative 
work  is  rich  with  the  suggestion  which  they 
bring.  One  may  observe  the  graceful  fig- 
ures issuing  from  the  midst  of  flower  and 
leaf ;  above  all,  one  may  note  how  repeat- 


IN  MEDIAEVAL  ART  99 

edly  lie  presents  the  mytli  of  Amor,  and 
recurs  to  the  Amorini,  types  of  childhood 
under  a  purely  naturalistic  conception. 

The  child  Jesus  and  the  child  Amor 
appear  side  by  side  in  the  creations  of 
Raphael's  genius.  In  the  great  Renaissance, 
of  which  he  was  so  consummate  an  expo- 
nent, the  ancient  classic  world  and  the  Chris- 
tian met  in  these  two  types  of  childhood: 
the  one  a  childhood  of  the  air,  unmixed 
with  good  or  evil ;  the  other  a  childhood  of 
heaven  and  earth,  proleptic  of  earthly  con- 
flict, proleptic  also  of  heavenly  triumph. 
The  coincidence  is  not  of  chance.  The  new 
world  into  which  men  were  looking  was  not, 
as  some  thought,  to  be  in  the  submersion  of 
Christianity  and  a  return  to  Paganism,  nor, 
as  others,  in  a  stern  asceticism,  which  should 
render  Christianity  an  exclusive  church, 
standing  aloof  from  the  world  as  from  a 
thing  wholly  evil.  There  was  to  be  room  for 
truth  and  love  to  dwell  together,  and  the 
symbol  of  this  union  was  the  child.  Ra- 
phael's Christ  child  drew  into  its  features  a 
classic  loveliness  ;  his  Amor  took  on  a  Christ- 
like purity  and  truthfulness. 

Leslie,  in  his  Handbook  for  Young  Paint- 
ers, makes  a  very  sensible  reflection    upon 


100  CHILDHOOD  IN  ART 

Raphael's  children,  as  distinguished  from  the 
unehildlike  children  of  Francia,  for  exam- 
ple. "  A  fault  of  many  painters,"  he  says, 
"  in  their  representations  of  childhood  is, 
that  they  make  it  taking  an  interest  in  what 
can  only  concern  more  advanced  periods  of 
life.  But  Raphael's  children,  unless  the  sub- 
ject requires  it  should  be  otherwise,  are  as 
we  see  them  generally  in  nature,  wholly  un- 
concerned with  the  incidents  that  occupy  the 
attention  of  their  elders.  Thus  the  boy,  in 
the  cartoon  of  the  Beautiful  Gate,  pulls  the 
girdle  of  his  grandfather,  who  is  entirely 
absorbed  in  what  S.  Peter  is  saying  to  the 
cripple.  The  child,  impatient  of  delay,  wants 
the  old  man  to  move  on.  In  the  Sacrifice  at 
Lystra,  also,  the  two  beautiful  boys  placed 
at  the  altar,  to  officiate  at  the  ceremony,  are 
too  young  to  comprehend  the  meaning  of 
what  is  going  on  about  them.  One  is 
engrossed  with  the  pipes  on  which  he  is 
playing,  and  the  attention  of  the  other  is  at- 
tracted by  a  ram  brought  for  sacrifice.  The 
quiet  simplicity  of  these  sweet  children  has 
an  indescribably  charming  effect  in  this  pic- 
ture, where  every  other  figure  is  imder  the 
influence  of  an  excitement  they  alone  do 
not  partake  in.     Children,  in  the  works  of 


IN  MEDIEVAL  ART  101 

inferior  painters,  are  often  nothing  else  than 
little  actors ;  but  what  I  have  noticed  of  Ra- 
phael's children  is  true,  in  many  instances, 
of  the  children  in  the  pictures  of  Rembrandt, 
Jan  Steen,  Hogarth,  and  other  great  paint- 
ers, who,  like  Raphael,  looked  to  nature  for 
their  incidents," 

There  was  one  artist  of  this  time  who 
looked  to  nature  not  merely  for  the  inci- 
dents of  childhood,  but  for  the  soul  of  child- 
hood itself.  It  is  impossible  to  regard  the 
work  of  Luca  della  Robbia,  especially  in 
that  ware  which  receives  his  name,  without 
perceiving  that  here  was  a  man  who  saw 
children  and  rejoiced  in  their  young  lives 
with  a  simple,  ingenuous  delight.  The  very 
spirit  which  led  this  artist  to  seek  for  expres- 
sion in  homely  forms  of  material,  to  domes- 
ticate art,  as  it  were,  was  one  which  would 
make  him  quick  to  seize  upon,  not  the  inci- 
dents alone,  but  the  graces,  of  childhood. 
Nor  is  it  straining  a  point  to  say  that  the 
purity  of  his  color  was  one  with  the  purity 
of  this  sympathy  with  childhood.  The  Re- 
naissance as  a  witness  to  a  new  occupation 
of  the  world  by  humanity  finds  its  finest 
expression  in  the  hope  which  springs  in  the 
lovely  figures  of  Luca  della  Robbia. 


102  CHILDHOOD  IN  ART 

It  is  significant  of  this  Eenaissance  —  it 
is  significant,  I  think  we  shall  find,  of  every 
great  new  birth  in  the  world  —  that  it  turns 
its  face  toward  childhood,  and  looks  into 
that  image  for  the  profoundest  realization 
of  its  hopes  and  dreams.  In  the  attitude  of 
men  toward  childhood  we  may  discover  the 
near  or  far  realization  of  that  supreme  hope 
and  confidence  with  which  the  great  head 
of  the  human  family  saw,  in  the  vision  of  a 
child,  the  new  heaven  and  the  new  earth. 
It  was  when  his  disciples  were  reasoning 
among  themselves  which  of  them  should  be 
the  greatest  that  Jesus  took  a  child,  and  set 
him  by  him,  and  said  unto  them,  "  Whoso- 
ever shall  receive  this  child  in  my  name  re- 
ceiveth  me."  The  reception  of  the  Christ 
by  men,  from  that  day  to  this,  has  been 
marked  by  successive  throes  of  humanity, 
and  in  each  great  movement  there  has  been 
a  new  apprehension  of  childhood,  a  new 
recognition  of  the  meaning  involved  in  the 
pregnant  words  of  the  Saviour.  Such  a  rec- 
ognition lies  in  the  children  of  Raphael  and 
of  Luca  della  Robbia.  There  may  have  been 
no  express  intimation  on  their  part  of  the 
connection   between  their  works  and    the 


IN  MEDIEVAL  ART  103 

great  prophecy,  but  it  is  often  for  later  gen- 
erations to  read  more  clearly  the  presence  of 
a  thought  by  means  of  light  thrown  back 
upon  it.  The  course  of  Clu*istianity  since 
the  Renaissance  supplies  such  a  light. 


VI 

IN  ENGLISH  LITERATURE  AND  ART 


To  hunt  through  English  literature  and 
art  for  representations  of  childhood  would 
seem  to  be  like  looking  for  the  persons  of 
children  in  any  place  where  people  congre- 
gate. How  could  there  be  any  conspicuous 
absence,  except  under  conditions  which  ne- 
cessarily exclude  the  very  young  ?  Yet  it  is 
impossible  to  follow  the  stream  of  English 
literature,  with  this  pursuit  in  mind,  without 
becoming  aware  that  at  one  point  in  its 
course  there  is  a  marked  access  of  this  force 
of  childhood.  There  is,  to  be  sure,  a  fallacy 
lurking  in  the  customary  study  of  the  devel- 
opment of  literature.  We  fall  into  the  way 
of  thinking  of  that  literature  as  an  organism 
proceeding  from  simpler  to  more  complex 
forms  ;  we  are  attent  upon  the  transition  of 
one  epoch  into  another ;  we  come  to  regard 
each  period  as  essentially  anticipatory  of 
the  succeeding  period.     We  make  the  same 


IN  ENGLISH  LITERATURE  105 

mistake  often  in  our  regard  of  historical 
sequence,  looking  at  all  past  periods  simply 
and  exclusively  with  refereKfce  to  the  present 
stand  from  which  we  take  our  observations. 
A  too  keen  sensibility  to  the  logic  which 
requires  time  for  its  conclusion,  a  too  feeble 
sense  of  the  logic  which  dwells  in  the  relation 
between  the  seen  and  the  unseen,  —  these 
stand  in  the  way  of  a  clear  perception  of 
the  forces  immanent  in  literature  and  life. 

The  distinction  is  worth  bearing  in  mind 
when  one  surveys  English  ,  literature  with 
the  purpose  of  recognizing^h^  child  in  it. 
There  are  certain  elemental  facts  and  truths 
of  which  old  and  new  canno't  be  predicated. 
The  vision  of  helpless  childhood  is  no  mod- 
ern discovery ;  it  is  no  aildent  revelation. 
The  child  at  play  was  seen  by  Homer  and 
by  Cowper,  and  the  latter^ did  not  derive 
his  apprehension  from  any  study  of  the  for- 
mer. The  humanism  which  underlies  all 
literature  is  independent  of  circumstances 
for  its  perception  of  the  great  moving  forces 
of  life ;  it  is  independent  of  the  great 
changes  in  human  history ;  even  so  great  a 
change  as  the  advent  of  Cl^iistianity  could 
not  interfere  with  the  normal  expression  of 
elemental  facts  in  life. 


106       CHILDHOOD  IN  LITERATURE 

Wherein,  then,  lies  the  difference  between 
an  antique  and  a  modern  apprehension  of 
childhood?  For  what  may  one  look  in  a 
survey  of  English  literature  that  he  would 
not  find  in  Greek  or  Roman  authors?  Is 
there  any  development  of  hrnnan  thought  in 
relation  to  childhood  to  be  traced  in  a  liter- 
ature which  has  reflected  the  mind  of  the 
centuries  since  the  Renaissance  ?  The  most 
aggressive  type  of  modern  Christianity,  at 
any  rate  the  most  free  type,  is  to  be  found 
amongst  English-speaking  people ;  and  if 
Christianity  has  in  any  way  modified  the 
course  of  thought  regarding  the  child,  the 
effect  will  certainly  be  seen  in  English  liter- 
ature and  art. 

A  recollection  of  ballad  literature,  with- 
out critical  inquiry  of  the  comparative  age 
of  the  writings,  brings  to  light  the  familiar 
and  frequent  incident  of  cruelty  to  children 
in  some  form:  of  the  secret  putting  away 
of  babes,  as  in  the  affecting  ballad  of  the 
Queen's  Marie ;  of  the  cold  and  heartless 
murder,  as  in  the  Cruel  Mother,  and  in  the 
tragic  tale  of  The  Child's  Last  Will,  where 
a  sudden  dramatic  and  revealing  turn  is 
given,  after  the  child  has  willed  its  various 
possessions,  in  the  lines,  — 


IN  ENGLISH  LITERATURE  107 

"  '  What  wish  leav'st  thou  thy  step-mother 
Little  daughter  dear  ?  ' 
'  Of  hell  the  bitter  sorrow 
Sweet  step-mother  mine 
For  ah,  ah  !  I  am  so  ill,  ah  ! ' 

"  '  What  wish  leav'st  thou  thy  old  nurse 
Little  daughter  dear  ?  ' 
'  For  her  I  wish  the  same  pangs 
Sweet  atep-mother  mine 
For  ah,  ah !  I  am  so  ill,  ah ! ' " 

That  grewsome  story  of  Lamkin,  with  its 
dripping  of  blood  in  almost  every  stanza, 
gets  half  its  curdling  power  from  the  slow 
torture  of  the  sensibilities,  as  the  babe  is 
slain  and  then  rocked  in  its  cradle,  and  the 
mother,  summoned  by  its  cries,  meets  her 
own  fate  at  the  hands  of  the  treacherous 
nurse  and  Lamkin,  whose  name  is  a  piece 
of  bald  irony  :  — 

"  Then  Lamkin 's  ta'en  a  sharp  knife 
That  hang  down  by  his  gaire, 
And  he  has  gi'en  the  bonny  babe  ; 
A  deep  wouud  and  a  sair. 

"  Then  Lamkin  he  rocked, 

And  the  fause  nouriee  sang 
Till  frae  ilkae  bore  o'  the  cradle 
The  red  blood  outsprang. 

"  Then  out  it  spak  the  ladie 

As  she  stood  on  the  stair, 
'  What  ails  my  balm,  nouriee, 

That  he 's  greeting  sae  sair  ? 


108       CHILDHOOD  IN  LITERATURE 

"  '  0  still  my  bairn,  nonrice 

O  still  him  wi'  the  pap  I ' 
'  He  winna  still,  lady, 
For  this  nor  for  that.' 

"  '  O  still  my  bairn,  nourice  ; 

O  still  him  wi'  the  wand  I  ' 
'  He  winna  still,  lady. 

For  a'  his  father's  land.' 

"  '  O  still  my  bairn,  nomice, 

Oh  still  him  wi'  the  bell  ! ' 
'  He  winna  still,  lady, 

TiU  ye  come  down  yoursel.' 

"  O  the  firsten  step  she  steppit, 
She  steppit  on  a  stane  ; 
But  the  neisten  step  she  steppit, 
She  met  him,  Lamkin." 

Another  early  and  significant  illustration 
is  found  in  the  popular  story  of  Hugh  of 
Lincoln ;  but  instead  of  turning  to  the 
ballad  of  that  name,  one  may  better  have 
recourse  to  Chaucer's  version  as  contained 
in  the  Canterbury  tale  of  the  Prioress.  In 
the  prologue  to  this  tale  appear  the  words 
of  Scripture,  "  Out  of  the  mouths  of  babes 
and  sucklings,"  in  a  paraphrase,  and  the 
Prioress  turns  to  the  Virgin,  beseeching  her 
to  give  words  for  the  telling  of  the  pite- 
ous tale.  The  story  of  Hugh  of  Lincoln  — 
that  in  the  reign  of  Henry  IH.,  the  Jews  of 


IN  ENGLISH  LITERATURE  109 

Lincoln  stole  a  boy  of  eight  years,  named 
Hugh,  tortured  and  crucified  him  —  was  re- 
ceived with  great  credit,  for  it  concentrated 
the  venomous  enmity  with  which  Christians 
regarded  the  Jews,  and  by  a  refinement 
of  cruelty  pictured  the  Jews  in  a  solitary 
instance  as  behaving  in  a  Christian-like 
manner.  Chaucer  tells  the  story  with  ex- 
quisite pathos,  lingering  upon  the  childish 
ways  of  Hugh,  and  preparing  the  tears  of 
his  readers  by  picturing  the  little  boy  as  a 
miniature  saint.  It  can  scarcely  be  called 
a  picture  of  artless  childhood ;  for  though 
touches  here  and  there  bring  out  the  prattler, 
Chaucer  appears  to  have  meant  that  his 
readers  shoidd  be  especially  impressed  by 
the  piety  of  this  "  litel  clergeoun,"  or  chor- 
ister boy  :  — 

"  A  litel  clergeoun,  seven  yeer  of  age, 
That  day  by  day  to  scole  was  his  wone  ; 
And  eek  also,  whereas  he  saugh  thymage 
Of  Cristes  mooder,  he  hadde  in  usage, 
As  hym  was  taught,  to  knele  adoun  and  seye 
His  Ave  Marie,  as  he  goth  by  the  weye." 

And  so  we  are  told  of  the  little  fellow  eager 
to  learn  the  Alma  Redemptoris  of  his  elders, 
and  conning  it  as  he  went  to  and  from 
school,  his  way  leading  thi*ough  the  Jews' 
quarter :  — 


110       CHILDHOOD  IN  LITERATURE 

"  As  I  have  seyd,  thurgh-out  the  Jewerie 
This  litel  child,  as  he  cam  to  and  fro, 
Ful  murily  wolde  he  synge  and  crie 
O  Alma  redemptoris  evere-mo 
The  swetnesse  hath  his  herte  perced  so 
Of  Cristes  mooder,  that  to  hire  to  preye 
He  kan  nat  stynte  of  syngyng  by  the  weye." 

The  wicked  Jews,  vexed  by  his  singing, 
kill  him,  and  cast  his  body  into  a  pit.  His 
weeping  mother  seeks  him,  and,  happening 
by  the  pit,  is  made  aware  of  his  presence  by 
the  miracle  of  his  dead  lips  still  singing  the 
Alma  Redemptoris. 

In  two  other  stories  has  Chaucer  dwelt 
upon  the  pathos  of  childhood  and  bereft  or 
suffering  motherhood.  In  the  Man  of  Law's 
tale  of  Custance,  there  is  a  touching  passage 
where  Custance  and  her  babe  are  driven 
away  from  the  kingdom,  and  exposed  to  the 
sea  in  the  ship  which  had  brought  them. 
The  mother  kneels  upon  the  sand  before 
embarking,  and  puts  her  trust  in  the  Lord. 

"  Her  litel  child  lay  wepying  in  hir  arm, 
And  knelynge,  pitously  to  hym  she  seyde, 

'  Pees  litel  sone,  I  wol  do  thee  noon  harm ! ' 
With  that  hir  kerchief  of  hir  heed  she  breyde, 
And  over  hise  litel  eyen  she  it  leyde. 
And  in  hir  arm  she  lulleth  it  ful  f aste 
And  in-to  hevene  hire  eyen  up  she  caste." 

Then  she  commits  herself  and  her  child  to 
Mary  by  the  love  of  Mary's  child. 


IN  ENGLISH  LITERATURE  111 

*'  And  up  she  rist,  and  walketh  donn  the  stronde 
Toward  the  ship,  —  hir  f olweth  al  the  prees,  — 
And  evere  she  preyeth  hire  child  to  hold  his  pees." 

Again,  in  the  Clerk's  tale  of  Patient  Gri- 
selda,  the  effect  of  the  story  is  greatly  height- 
ened by  the  narrative  of  the  successive  part- 
ings of  the  mother  ^vith  her  child ;  and  the 
climax  is  reached  in  the  burst  of  gladness 
and  pent-up  feeling  which  overtakes  Gri- 
selda  at  the  restoration  of  her  son  and  daugh- 
ter. It  is  noticeable  that  in  these  and  other  j  ^ 
instances  childhood  appears  chiefly  as  an  Tj  K 
appeal  to  pity,  rarely  as  an  object  of  direct/  ^ 
love  and  joy.  This  is  not  to  be  wondered 
at  when  one  considers  the  character  of  the 
English  race,  and  the  nature  of  the  redemp- 
tion which  it  has  been  undergoing  in  the 
slow  process  of  its  submission  to  the  spirit 
of  Christ.  We  say  the  English  race,  with- 
out stopping  to  make  nice  distinctions  be- 
tween the  elements  which  existed  at  the  time 
of  the  Great  Charter,  just  as  we  may  prop- 
erly speak  of  the  American  people  of  the 
time  of  the  Constitution. 

This  character  is  marked  by  a  brutality,  a 
murderous  spirit,  which  lies  scarcely  con- 
cealed, to-day,  in  the  temper  of  every  Eng- 
lish crowd,  and  has  left  its  mark  on  litera- 


112     qniLDHOOD  in  literature 

ture  from  the  ballads  to  Oliver  Twist.  Thus 
brutal  instinct,  tbis  rude,  savage,  northern 
spirit,  is  discovered  in  conflict  with  the  dis- 
arming power  of  the  spirit  of  Christ,  and 
the  stages  of  the  conflict  are  most  clearly- 
indicated  in  poetry,  which  is  to  England 
what  pictorial  and  sculpturesque  art  is  to 
the  south,  the  highest  exponent  of  its  spir- 
itual life.  More  comprehensively,  English 
literature  affords  the  most  complete  means 
of  measuring  the  advance  of  England  in  hu- 
manity. 

It  belongs  to  the  nature  of  this  deep  con- 
flict that  there  should  appear  from  time  to 
time  the  finest  exemplars  of  the  ideals  formed 
by  the  divine  spirit,  side  by  side  with  exhi- 
bitions of  the  most  willfid  baseness.  Eng- 
lish literature  abounds  in  these  contrasts ;  it 
is  still  more  expressive  of  tides  of  spiritual 
life,  the  elevation  of  thought  and  imagina- 
tion succeeded  by  almost  groveling  animal- 
ism. And  since  one  of  the  symbols  of  a 
perfected  Christianity  is  the  child,  it  is  not 
unfair  to  seek  for  its  presence  in  literature, 
nor  would  it  be  a  rare  thing  to  discover  it  in 
passages  which  hint  at  the  conflict  between 
the  forces  of  good  and  evil  so  constantly 
going  on. 


IN  ENGLISH  LITERATURE  113 

It  is  not  strange,  therefore,  that  the  earli- 
est illustrations  of  childhood  should  mainly 
turn,  as  we  have  seen,  upon  that  aspect 
which  is  at  once  most  natural  and  most 
Christian.  Pity,  like  a  naked,  new-born 
babe,  does  indeed  ride  the  blast  in  those 
wild,  more  than  half-savage  bursts  of  the 
English  spirit  which  are  preserved  for  us  in 
ballad  literature  ;  and  in  the  first  springs  of 
English  poetic  art  in  Chaucer,  the  child  is. 
as  it  were  the  mediator  between  the  rough 
story  and  the  melody  of  the  singer.  One 
cannot  fail  to  see  how  the  introduction  of 
the  child  by  Chaucer,  in  close  union  with 
the  mother,  is  almost  a  transfer  of  the  Ma- 
donna into  English  poetry,  —  a  Madonna 
not  of  ritual,  but  of  humanity. 

There  are  periods  in  the  history  of  every 
nation  when  the  inner  life  is  more  completely 
exposed  to  view,  and  when  the  student,  if  he ' 
be  observant,  may  trace  most  clearly  the  fun- 
damental arteries  of  being.  Such  a  period 
in  England  was  the  Elizabethan  era,  when 
the  tumultuous  English  spirit  manifested 
itseK  in  religion,  in  politics,  in  enterprise, 
in  adventure,  and  in  intellectual  daring, 
—  that   era   which  was   dominated   by   the 


114       CHILDHOOD  IN  LITERATURE 

great  master  of  English  speech.  It  is  the 
fashion  of  every  age  to  write  its  characteris- 
tics in  forms  which  have  become  obsolete, 
and  to  resort  to  masquerade  for  a  display  of 
its  real  emotions.  It  was  because  chivalry 
was  no  longer  the  every-day  habit  of  men 
that  Spenser  used  it  for  his  purposes,  and 
translated  the  Seven  Champions  of  Christen- 
dom into  a  prof  ounder  and  more  impassioned 
poem,  emblematical  of  that  great  ethical 
conflict  which  has  been  a  significant  feature 
of  English  history  from  the  first.  In  that 
series  of  knightly  adventures,  The  Faery 
Queen,  wherein  the  field  of  human  character 
is  traversed,  sin  traced  to  its  lurking-place, 
and  the  old  dragon  of  unrighteousness  set 
upon  furiously,  there  is  a  conspicuous  inci- 
dent contained  in  the  second  book.  In  each 
book  Spenser  conceives  the  antagonist  of 
the  knight,  in  some  spiritual  form,  to  have 
wrought  a  mischief  which  needs  to  be  re- 
paired and  revenged.  Thus  a  dragon  oc- 
casions the  adventures  of  the  Red  Cross 
knight,  and  in  the  legend  of  Sir  Guyon  the 
enchantress  Acrasia,  or  Intemperance,  has 
caused  the  death  of  a  knight  and  his  lady ; 
the  latter  slays  herself  because  of  her  hus- 
band's death,  and  plunges  her  babe's  inno- 


IN  ENGLISH  LITERATURE  115 

cent  hands  into  her  own  bloody  breast  for  a 
witness.  Sir  Guyon  and  the  Palmer,  stand- 
ing over  the  dead  bodies,  hold  grave  discourse 
upon  the  incident ;  then  they  bury  the  dead, 
and  seek  in  vain  to  cleanse  the  babe's  hands 
in  a  neighboring  fountain.  The  pure  wa- 
ter will  not  be  stained,  and  the  child  bears 
the  name  Ruddymane,  —  the  Red  -  Handed, 
—  and  shall  so  bear  the  sign  of  a  vengeance 
he  is  yet  to  execute. 

It  is  somewhat  difficult  to  see  into  the  full 
meaning  of  Spenser's  allegory,  for  the  reason 
that  the  poet  breaks  through  the  meshes  of 
his  allegoric  net  and  soars  into  a  freer  air ; 
but  there  are  certain  strong  lines  running 
through  the  poem,  and  this  of  the  ineradica- 
ble nature  of  sin  is  one  of  them.  To  Spen- 
ser, vexed  with  problems  of  life,  that  concep- 
tion of  childhood  which  knit  it  closely  with 
the  generations  was  a  significant  one,  and  in 
the  bloody  hand  of  the  infant,  which  could 
not  be  suffered  to  stain  the  chaste  fountain, 
he  saw  the  di-ead  transmission  of  an  inher- 
ited guilt  and  wrong.  The  poet  and  the 
moralist  struggle  for  ascendency,  and  in  this 
conflict  one  may  see  reflected  the  passion  for 
speculation  in  divinity  which  was  already 
making  deep  marks  in  English  literatiu-e. 


116       CHILDHOOD  IN  LITEEATUBE 

But  the  Elizabethan  era  had  its  share  of 
light-heartedness.     The  songs  of  the  dramar 
tists   and    other  lyrics  exhibit  very  clearly 
the  influence  upon   literature  of  the  revival 
of  ancient  learning.     As  the   art   of   Italy 
showed   the   old    poetic   grace   risen   again 
iinder  new  conditions,  so  the  dominant  art 
of  England  caught  a  light  from  the  uncov- 
ered glory  of  Greece  and  Kome.     It  was  the 
time  of   the   great  translations   of    Phaer, 
Golding,  North,  and  Chapman  ;  and  as  those 
translations  are  bold  appropriations  of  anti- 
quity, not  timid  attempts  at  satisfying  the 
requisitions  of  scholarship,  so  the  figures  of 
the  old  mythology  are  used  freely  and  ingen- 
uously ;    they   are    naturalized    in   English 
verse  far  more  positively  than  afterwards  in 
the  elegantia  of  the  Queen  Anne  and  Geor- 
gian periods.     Ben  Jonson's  Venus'  Kuna- 
way  is  an  exquisite  illustration  of  this  rich, 
decorative   use   of   the   old   fable.     It   was 
partly   through   this  sportive  appropriation 
of  the  myth  of  Amor,  so  vital  in  aU  litera- 
ture, that  the  lullabies  of  the  time  came  to 
get  their  sweetness.     The   poet,  in  putting 
songs   into   the   mother's   mouth,  is  not  so 
much  reflecting  the  Virgin  and  Child  as  he 
is  possessed  with  the  spirit  of  Greek  beauty, 


IN  ENGLISH  LITERATURE  117 

and  liis  delicate  fancy  plays  about  the  image 
of  a  little  Love.  Thus  may  we  read  the 
Golden  Slumbers  of  Dekker,  in  his  Patient 
Grissel.  By  a  pretty  conceit  George  Gas- 
coigne,  in  his  Lullaby  of  a  Lover,  captures 
the  sentiment  of  a  mother  and  babe,  to 
make  it  tell  the  story  of  his  own  love  and 
content.  There  is  a  touching  song  by  Rob- 
ert Greene  in  his  Menaphon,  where  Se- 
phestia  puts  into  her  lullaby  the  story  of 
her  parting  with  the  child's  father :  — 

"  Weep  not,  my  wanton,  smile  upon  my  knee, 
WTien  thou  art  old,  there  's  grief  enough  for  thee. 

The  wanton  smiled,  father  wept. 

Mother  cried,  baby  leapt. 

More  thou  crowed,  more  he  cried, 

Nature  could  not  sorrow  hide ; 

He  must  go,  he  must  kiss 

Child  and  mother,  baby  bless ; 

For  he  left  his  pretty  boy. 

Father's  sorrow,  father's  joy. 
Weep  not,  my  wanton,  smile  upon  my  knee, 
When  thou  art  old,  there  's  grief  enough  for  thee." 

We  are  apt  to  look  for  everything  in 
Shakespeare,  but  in  this  matter  of  childhood 
we  must  confess  that  there  is  a  meagi'eness 
of  reference  which  almost  tempts  us  into 
constructing  a  theory  to  account  for  it.  So 
far  as  dramatic  representation  is  concerned, 
the  necessary  limitations  of  the  stage  easily 


118        CHILDHOOD  IN  LITERATURE 

account  for  the  absence  of  the  young.  Girls 
were  not  allowed  to  act  in  Shakespeare's 
time,  and  it  is  not  easy  to  reduce  boys  ca- 
pable of  acting  to  the  stature  of  young  girls. 
More  than  this,  boys  and  girls  are  not  them- 
selves dramatic  in  action,  though  in  the  more 
modern  drama  they  are  sometimes  used, 
especially  in  domestic  scenes,  to  heighten 
effects,  and  to  make  most  reasonable  peo- 
ple wish  them  in  bed. 

Still,  within  the  limits  enforced  by  his 
art,  Shakespeare  more  than  once  rested 
much  on  youthful  figures.  The  gay,  agile 
Moth  has  a  species  of  femineity  about  him, 
so  that  we  fancy  he  would  be  most  easily 
shown  on  the  stage  by  a  girl ;  but  one  read- 
ily recalls  others  who  have  distinct  boyish 
properties.  In  Coriolanus,  when  the  mother 
and  wife  go  out  to  plead  with  the  angry 
Roman,  they  take  mth  them  his  little  boy. 
Volumnia,  frantic  with  fear,  with  love,  and 
with  a  woman's  changing  passion,  calls  upon 
one  and  another  to  join  her  in  her  entreaty. 
Virgilia,  the  wife,  crowds  in  a  word  at  the 
height  of  Volumnia' s  appeal,  when  the  vol- 
uble grandmother  has  been  rather  excitedly 
talking  about  Coriolanus  treading  on  his 
mother's  womb,  that  brought  him  into  the 
world.     Virgilia  strikes  in,  — 


IN  ENGLISH  LITERATURE  119 

"  Ay,  and  mine 
That  brought  you  forth  this  boy,  to  keep  your  name 
Living  to  time." 

Whereupon  young  Marcius,  with  delicious 
boyish  brag  and  chivalry  :  — 

"  A'  shall  not  tread  on  me ; 
I  '11  run  away  till  I  am  bigger,  but  then  I  '11  fight." 

In  the  same  play  there  is  a  description  of 
the  boy  which  tallies  exactly  with  the  single 
appearance  which  he  makes  in  person.  Va- 
leria drops  in  upon  the  mother  and  grand- 
mother in  a  friendly  way,  and  civilly  asks 
after  the  boy. 

"  Vtr.  I  thank  your  ladyship ;  well,  good  madam. 

"  Vol.  He  had  rather  see  the  swords,  and  hear  a  drum, 
than  look  upon  his  schoolmaster. 

"  Val.  O'  my  word,  the  father's  son  :  I  '11  swear,  't  is 
a  very  pretty  boy.  O'  my  troth,  I  looked  upon  him  o' 
Wednesday  half  an  hour  together :  has  such  a  confirmed 
countenance.  I  saw  him  run  after  a  gilded  butterfly ; 
and  when  he  caught  it,  he  let  it  go  again ;  and  after  it 
again  :  and  over  and  over  he  comes,  and  up  again ; 
catched  it  again ;  or  whether  his  fall  enraged  him,  or 
how  't  was,  he  did  so  set  his  teeth  and  tear  it ;  O,  I 
warrant,  how  he  mammocked  it  1 

"  Vol.  One  on  's  father's  moods. 

"  Val.  Indeed,  la,  't  is  a  noble  child. 

"  Vtr.  A  crack,  madam.' ' 

The  most  eminent  example  in  Shakespeare 
of  active  childhood  is  unquestionably  the 
part  played  by  young  Arthur  in  the  drama 


120       CHILDHOOD  IN  LITEBATURE 

of  King  John.  It  is  the  youth  of  Arthur, 
his  dependence,  his  sorry  inheritance  of 
misery,  his  helplessness  among  the  raging 
wolves  about  him,  his  childish  victory  over 
Hubert,  and  his  forlorn  death,  when  he 
leaps  trembling  from  the  walls,  which 
impress  the  imagination.  "  Stay  yet,"  says 
Pembroke  to  Salisbury,  — 

"  I '11  go  with  thee 
And  find  the  inheritance  of  this  poor  child, 
His  little  kingdom  of  a  forced  grave." 

Shakespeare,  busy  with  the  story  of  kings, 
is  moved  with  deep  compassion  for  this  child 
among  kings,  who  overcomes  the  hard  heart 
of  Hubert  by  his  innocent  words,  the  very 
strength  of  feeble  childhood,  and  falls  like  a 
poor  lamb  upon  the  stones,  where  his  prince- 
dom could  not  save  him. 

In  that  ghastly  play  of  Titus  Andronicus, 
which  melts  at  last  into  unavailins:  tears, 
with  what  exquisite  grace  is  the  closing 
scene  humanized  by  the  passage  where  the 
elder  Lucius  calls  his  boy  to  the  side  of  his 
dead  grandsire :  — 

"  Come  hither,  boy  ;  come,  come,  and  learn  of  us 
To  melt  in  showers :  thy  grandsire  loved  thee  well : 
Many  a  matter  hath  he  told  to  thee, 
Meet  and  agreeing  with  thine  infancy ; 


IN  ENGLISH  LITERATURE         121 

In  that  respect,  then,  like  a  loving  child, 

Shed  yet  some  small  drops  from  thy  tender  spring, 

Because  kind  nature  doth  require  it  so.' ' 

The  relentless  spirit  of  Lady  Macbeth  is 
in  nothing  figured  more  acutely  than  when 
the  woman  and  mother  is  made  to  say,  — 

"  I  have  given  suck,  and  know 
How  tender  't  is  to  love  the  habe  that  milks  me. 
I  would,  whUe  it  was  smiling  in  my  face, 
Have  plucked  my  nipple  from  his  boneless  gums 
And  dashed  the  brains  out,  had  I  sworn  as  you 
Have  done  to  this." 

In  the  witch's  hell-broth  one  ingredient  is 
"finger  of  birth-strangled  babe,"  while  in 
the  portents  which  rise  to  Macbeth's  vision 
a  bloody  child  and  a  child  crowned,  with  a 
tree  in  his  hand,  are  apparitions  of  ghostly 
prophecy.  Then  in  that  scene  where  Ross 
discloses  slowly  and  with  pent-up  passion 
the  murder  of  Macduff's  wife  and  children, 
and  Macduff  hears  as  in  a  dream,  waking  to 
the  blinding  light  of  horrid  day,  with  what 
a  piercing  shriek  he  cries  out,  — 

"  He  has  no  children  I  " 

and  then  surges  back  to  his  own  pitiful 
state,  transformed  for  a  moment  into  an  in- 
furiated creature,  all  instinct,  from  which  a 
hell-kite  has  stolen  his  mate  and  pretty  brood. 


122       CHILDHOOD  IN  LITERATURE 

By  what  marvelous  flash  of  poetic  power 
Shakespeare  in  this  mighty  passage  lifts 
that  humblest  image  of  parental  care,  a  hen 
and  chickens,  into  the  heights  of  human  pas- 
sion. Ah  !  as  one  sees  a  hen  with  a  brood 
of  chickens  under  her,  —  how  she  gathers 
them  under  her  wings,  and  will  stay  in  the 
cold  if  she  can  but  keep  them  warm,  — •  one's 
mind  turns  to  those  words  of  profound  pa- 
thos spoken  over  the  imloving  Jerusalem  ; 
there  was  the  voice  of  a  nature  into  which 
was  gathered  all  the  father's  and  the  mo- 
ther's love.  In  these  two  passages  one  sees 
the  irradiation  of  poor  feathered  life  with 
the  glory  of  the  image  of  the  highest. 

How  important  a  part  in  the  drama  of 
King  Richard  III.  do  the  yoimg  princes 
play ;  as  princes,  indeed,  in  the  unfolding 
of  the  plot,  yet  as  children  in  the  poet's 
portraiture  of  them.  We  hear  their  childish 
prattle,  we  see  their  timid  shrinking  from 
the  dark  Tower,  and  then  we  have  the  effect 
of  innocent  childhood  upon  the  callous  mur- 
derers, Dighton  and  Forrest,  as  related  in 
that  short,  sharp,  dramatic  account  which 
Tyrrel  gives :  — 

"  Dighton  and  Forrest,  whom  I  did  suborn 
To  do  this  ruthless  piece  of  butchery, 


m  ENGLISH  LITERATURE  123 

Although  they  were  flesh' d  villains,  bloody  dogs, 
Melting  with  tenderness  and  kind  compassion 
Wept  like  two  children  in. their  deaths'  sad  stories. 
'  Lo,  thus, '  quoth  Dighton,  '  lay  those  tender  babes :  ' 
'  Thus,  thus,'  quoth  Forrest,  '  girdling  one  another 
Within  their  innocent  alabaster  arms : 
Their  lips  were  four  red  roses  on  a  stalk. 
Which  in  their  summer  beauty  kiss'd  each  other. 
A  book  of  prayers  on  their  pillow  lay ; 
Which    once,'   quoth    Forrest,    '  almost    changed    my 

mind ; 
But  0  !  the  devU  '  —  there  the  villain  stopp'd  ; 
Whilst  Dighton  thus  told  on  :    '  We  smothered 
The  most  replenished  sweet  work  of  nature, 
That  from  the  prime  creation  e'er  she  framed.' 
Thus  both  are  gone  with  conscience  and  remorse ; 
They  could  not  speak." 

The  glances  at  infancy,  though  infrequent, 
are  touched  with  strong  human  feeling, 
^geon,  narrating  the  strange  adventures  of 
his  shipwreck,  tells  of  the 

"  Piteous  plainings  of  the  pretty  babes 
That  mourned  for  fashion,  ignorant  what  to  fear ;  " 

and  scattered  throughout  the  plays  are  pas- 
sages and  lines  which  touch  lightly  or  signifi- 
cantly the  realm  of  childhood  :  as,  — 
"  Pity  like  a  naked,  new-bom  babe ; " 


"  'T  is  the  eye  of  childhood 
That  fears  a  painted  devil," 


in  Macbeth ; 


124       CHILDHOOD  IN  LITERATURE 

"  Love  is  like  a  child 
That  longs  for  every  thing  that  he  can  come  by ;  " 

"  How  wayward  is  this  foolish  love 
That  like  a  testy  babe  will  scratch  the  nnrse, 
And  presently  all  humble  kiss  the  rod," 

in  Two  Gentlemen  of  Verona ; 

"  Those  that  do  teach  young  babes 
Do  it  with  gentle  means  and  easy  tasks," 

says  Desdemona ;  and  Cleopatra,  when  the 

poisonous  asp  is  planting  its  fangs,  says  with 

saddest  irony,  — 

"Peace!  peace! 
Dost  thou  not  see  my  baby  at  my  breast 
That  sucks  the  nurse  asleep  ? ' ' 

There  is  a  charming  illustration  of  the 
blending  of  the  classic  myth  of  Amor  with 
actual  childhood  in  these  lines  of  A  Mid- 
summer-Night's Dream,  where  Helena  says, 

"  Love  looks  not  with  the  eyes,  but  with  the  mind  ; 
And  therefore  is  winged  Cupid  painted  blind : 
Nor  hath  Love's  mind  of  any  judgment  taste : 
Wings  and  no  eyes  figure  unheedy  haste : 
And  therefore  is  Love  said  to  be  a  child, 
Because  in  choice  he  is  so  oft  beguiled. 
As  waggish  boys  in  games  themselves  forswear, 
So  the  boy  Love  is  perjured  everywhere." 

In  the  noonday  musing  of  Jaques,  when 
the  summer  sky  hung  over  the  greenwood, 
and  he  fell  to  thinking  of  the  roimd  world 


IN  ENGLISH  LITERATURE  125 

and  all  that  dwell  therein,  the  Seven  Ages  of 
Man  passed  in  procession  before  him  :  — 

"  At  first  the  infant 
Milling  and  puking  in  the  nurse's  arms. 
And  then  the  whining  school-boy,  with  his  satchel 
And  shining  morning  face,  creeping  like  snail 
Unwillingly  to  school," 

until  the  last  poor    shambling   creature   is 
borne  off  in  second  childhood. 

There  are  doubtless  other  passages  which 
might  be  gleaned,  but  the  survey  is  full 
enough  to  show  how  scantily,  after  all, 
Shakespeare  has  made  use  of  the  figure  and 
the  image  of  childhood.  The  reflection  has 
led  an  ingenious  writer  to  explain  the  fact 
by  the  circumstances  of  Shakespeare's  life, 
which  hindered  his  study  of  children.  "  He 
was  clearly  old  for  his  age  when  still  a  boy, 
and  so  would  have  associated,  not  with  chil- 
dren, but  with  young  men.  His  marriage  as 
a  mere  lad  and  the  scanty  legends  of  his 
youth  all  tend  in  the  same  direction.  The 
course  of  his  life  led  him  to  live  apart  from 
his  children  in  their  youth  ;  Ids  busy  life  in 
London  brought  him  into  the  interior  of  but 
few  families  ;  his  son,  of  whom  he  saw  but 
little,  died  young.  If  our  supposition  be 
true,  it  is  a  pathetic  thought  that  the  great 


126       CHILDHOOD  IN  LITERATURE 

dramatist  was  shut  out  from  the  one  kind 
of  companionship  which,  even  while  it  is  in 
no  degree  intellectual,  never  palls.  A  man, 
whatever  his  mental  powers,  can  take  de- 
light in  the  society  of  a  child,  when  a  person 
of  intellect  far  more  matured,  but  inferior 
to  his  own,  would  be  simply  insufferable."  ^ 
The  explanation  is  rather  ingenious  than 
satisfying.  Where  did  Shakespeare  get  his 
knowledge  of  the  abvindant  life  which  his 
dramas  present?  He  had  the  privilege  of 
most  people  of  remembering  his  own  boy- 
hood, and  the  mind  which  could  invent 
Hamlet  out  of  such  stuff  as  experience  and 
observation  furnished  could  scarcely  have 
missed  acquaintance  enough  with  children  to 
enable  him  to  portray  them  whenever  the 
exigencies  of  his  drama  required.  No,  it  is 
simpler  to  refer  the  absence  of  children  as 
actors  to  the  limitations  of  the  stage,  and  to 
ascribe  the  infrequent  references  to  childhood 
to  the  general  neglect  of  the  merely  domes- 
tic side  of  life  in  Shakespeare's  art.  Shake- 
speare's world  was  an  out-of-doors,  public 
world,  and  his  men,  women,  and  lovers  car- 
ried on  their  lives  with  no  denser  conceal- 
ment than  a  wood  or  an  arras  could  afford. 

^  On  Reading  Shakespeare  Through.     The  [London] 
Spectator,  August  26,  1882. 


IN  ENGLISH  LITERATURE  127 

The  comprehensiveness  of  Shakespeare 
found  some  place  for  children  ;  the  lofty 
narrowness  of  Milton,  none.  The  word 
child,  even,  can  scarcely  be  found  on  a  page 
of  Milton's  verse.  In  his  Ode  on  the 
Morning  of  Christ's  Nativity,  with  its 
Hymn,  how  slight  is  the  mention  of  the 
child  Jesus  !  How  far  removed  is  the  treat- 
ment from  that  employed  in  the  great  pro- 
cession of  Madonnas ! 

"  Say,  heavenly  Muse,  shall  not  thy  sacred  vein 
Afford  a  present  to  the  Infant  God  '?  " 

The  Infant  God  !  —  that  is  Milton's  atti- 
tude, more  than  half  pagan.  In  L'  Allegro 
and  in  Comus  the  lightness,  which  denotes 
the  farthest  swing  of  Milton's  fancy,  is  the 
relief  which  his  poetic  soul  found  from  the 
high  themes  of  theology,  in  Greek  art.  One 
is  aware  that  Milton's  fine  scholarship  was 
the  salvation  of  his  poetry,  as  his  Puritan 
sense  of  personality  held  in  check  a  nature 
which  else  might  have  run  riot  in  sportive- 
ness  and  sensuousness.  When  he  permitted 
himself  his  exquisite  short  flights  of  fancy, 
the  material  in  which  he  worked  was  not 
the  fresh  spring  of  English  nature,  human 
«r  earthly,  but  the  remote  Arcadian  virgin- 


128        CHILDHOOD  IN  LITERATURE 

ity  which  he  had  learned  of  in  his  books. 
Not  dancing  children,  but  winged  sprites, 
caught  his  poetic  eye. 

The  weight  of  personal  responsibility 
which  rests  upon  the  Puritan  conception  of 
life  offers  small  play  for  the  wantonness  and 
spontaneity  of  childhood.  Moreover,  the 
theological  substratum  of  Puritan  morality 
denied  to  childhood  any  freedom,  and  kept 
the  life  of  man  in  waiting  upon  the  conscious 
turning  of  the  soul  to  God.  Hence  child-= 
hood  was  a  time  of  probation  and  suspense. 
It  was  wrong,  to  begin  with,  and  was  re- 
pressed in  its  nature  until  maturity  should 
bring  an  active  and  conscious  allegiance  to 
God.  Hence,  also,  parental  anxiety  was 
forever  earnestly  seeking  to  anticipate  the 
maturity  of  age,  and  to  secure  for  childhood 
that  reasonable  intellectual  belief  which  it 
held  to  be  essential  to  salvation  ;  there  fol- 
lowed often  a  replacement  of  free  childhood 
by  an  abnormal  development.  In  any  event, 
the  tendency  of  the  system  was  to  ignore 
childhood,  to  get  rid  of  it  as  quickly  as  pos- 
sible, and  to  make  the  state  contain  only 
self-conscious,  determinate  citizens  of  the 
kingdom  of  heaven.  There  was,  unwittingly, 
a  reversal  of  the  divine  message,  and  it  was 


IN  ENGLISH  LITEEATUBE  129 

said  in  effect  to  children :  Except  ye  become 
as  grown  men  and  be  converted,  ye  cannot 
enter  the  kingdom  of  heaven. 

Nevertheless,  though  Puritanism  in  its 
excessive  anxiety  may  have  robbed  childhood 
of  its  freedom,  the  whole  spirit  of  the  move- 
ment was  one  conservative  of  family  rela- 
tions, and  the  narratives  of  domestic  life 
under  Puritanic  control  are  often  full  of  a 
grave  sweetness.  Indeed,  it  may  almost  be 
said  that  the  domestic  narrative  was  now 
born  into  English  literature.  Nor  could  the 
intense  concern  for  the  spiritual  well-being 
of  children,  a  religious  passion  reinforcing 
natural  affection,  fail  to  give  an  importance 
to  the  individual  life  of  the  family,  and 
prepare  the  way  for  that  new  intelligence  of 
the  scope  of  childhood  which  was  to  come 
later  to  an  England  still  largely  dominated 
by  Puritan  ideas. 

Milton  expressed  the  high  flight  of  the 
soul  above  earthly  things.  He  took  his 
place  upon  a  summit  where  he  could  show 
the  soul  all  the  confines  of  heaven  and  earth. 
Bunyan,  stirred  by  like  religious  impulses, 
made  his  soul  trudge  sturdily  along  toward 
an  earthly  paradise.  The  realism  of  his 
story  often   veils  successfully  the  spiritual 


130       CHILDHOOD  IN  LITERATURE 

sense,  and  makes  it  possible  for  children  to 
read  the  Pilgrim's  Progress  with  but  faint 
conception  of  its  religious  import.  In  the 
second  part  of  the  allegory,  Christian's  wife 
and  children  set  out  on  their  ramble,  in 
Christian's  footsteps.  There  is  no  lack  of 
individuality  in  characterization  of  the  per- 
sons. The  children  are  distinctly  conceived 
as  children;  they  are,  to  be  sure,  made  to 
conform  occasionally  to  the  demands  of  the 
spiritual  side  of  the  allegory,  yet  they 
remain  children,  and  by  their  speech  and 
action  betray  the  childish  mind. 

They  come  in  sight  of  the  lions,  and  "the 
boys  that  went  before  were  glad  to  cringe 
behind,  for  they  were  afraid  of  the  lions,  so 
they  stepped  back  and  went  behind."  When 
they  come  to  the  Porter's  Lodge,  they  abide 
there  awhile  with  Prudence,  Piety,  and 
Charity ;  Prudence  catechizes  the  four  chil- 
dren, who  return  commendably  correct  an- 
swers. But  Matthew,  the  oldest  boy,  falls 
sick  of  the  gripes ;  and  when  the  physi- 
cian asks  Christiana  what  he  has  been  eat- 
ing lately,  she  is  as  ignorant  as  any  mother 
can  be. 

"  Then  said  Samuel,"  who  is  as  communi- 
cative as  most  younger  brothers,  "  '  Mother, 


IN  ENGLISH  LITERATURE         131 

mother,  what  was  that  which  my  brother 
did  gather  up  and  eat,  so  soon  as  we  were 
come  from  the  Gate  that  is  at  the  head  of 
this  way  ?  You  know  that  there  was  an  or- 
chard on  the  left  hand,  on  the  other  side  of 
the  wall,  and  some  of  the  trees  hung  over 
the  wall,  and  my  brother  did  plash  and  did 
eat.' 

" '  True,  my  child,'  said  Christiana,  '  he 
did  take  thereof  and  did  eat,  naughty  boy  as 
he  was.  I  did  chide  him,  and  yet  he  would 
eat  thereof.'  "  So  Mr.  Skill,  the  physician, 
proceeds  to  make  a  purge.  "  You  know," 
says  Bunyan,  in  a  sly  parenthesis,  "  physi- 
cians give  strange  medicines  to  their  pa- 
tients." "  And  it  was  made  up,"  he  goes 
on,  "  into  pills,  with  a  promise  or  two,  and  a 
proportionable  quantity  of  salt.  Now  he  was 
to  take  them  three  at  a  time,  fasting,  in 
half  a  quarter  of  a  pint  of  Tears  of  Repent- 
ance. When  this  Portion  was  prepared  and 
brought  to  the  boy,  he  was  loth  to  take  it, 
though  torn  with  the  gripes  as  if  he  should 
be  pulled  in  pieces.  '  Come,  come,'  said  the 
physician,  '  you  must  take  it.'  '  It  goes 
against  my  stomach,'  said  the  boy.  '  I  must 
have  you  take  it,'  said  his  mother.  '  I  shall 
vomit  it  up  again,'  said  the  boy.     '  Pray, 


132        CHILDHOOD  IN  LITERATURE 

sir,'  said  Christiana  to  Mr.  Skill,  '  how  does 
it  taste  ? '  'It  has  no  ill  taste,'  said  the 
doctor,  and  with  that  she  touched  one  of  the 
pills  with  the  tip  of  her  tongue.  '  O  Mat- 
thew,' said  she,  '  this  Portipn  is  sweeter  than 
honey.  If  thou  lovest  thy  mother,  if  thou 
lovest  thy  brothers,  if  thou  lovest  Mercy,  if 
thou  lovest  thy  life,  take  it.'  So  with  much 
ado,  after  a  short  prayer  for  the  blessing  of 
God  upon  it,  he  took  it,  and  it  wrought 
kindly  with  him.  It  caused  him  to  jjurge, 
it  caused  him  to  sleep  and  rest  quietly,  it  put 
him  into  a  fine  heat  and  breathing  sweat, 
and  did  quite  rid  him  of  his  grijses." 

The  story  is  dotted  with  these  lifelike 
incidents,  and  the  consistency  is  rather  in 
the  basis  of  the  allegory  than  in  the  allegory 
itself.  In  truth,  we  get  in  the  Pilgrim's 
Progress  an  inimitable  picture  of  social  life 
in  the  lower  middle  class  of  England,  and 
in  this  second  part  a  very  vivid  glimpse  of 
a  Puritan  household.  The  glimpse  is  cor- 
rective of  a  too  stern  and  formal  apprehen- 
sion of  social  Puritanism,  and  in  the  story 
are  exhibited  the  natural  charms  and  graces 
which  not  only  could  not  be  expelled  by  a 
stern  creed,  but  were  essentially  connected 
with  the  lofty  ideals  which  made  Puritanism 


IN  ENGLISH  LITERATURE  138 

a  mighty  force  in  history.  Biinyaii  had  a 
genius  for  story-telling,  and  his  allegory  is 
very  frank ;  but  what  he  showed  as  well  as 
what  he  did  not  show  in  his  picture  of 
Christiana  and  the  children  indicates  the 
constraint  which  rested  upon  the  whole  Pu- 
ritan conception  of  childhood.  It  is  seen  at 
its  best  in  Bunyan,  and  this  great  Puritan 
poet  of  common  life  found  a  place  for  it  in 
his  survey  of  man's  estate ;  nature  asserted 
itself  in  spite  of  and  through  Puritanism. 

Milton's  Christmas  Hymn  has  the  organ 
roll  of  a  mind  moving  among  high  themes, 
and  making  the  earth  one  of  the  golden 
spheres.  Pope's  sacred  eclogue  of  the  Mes- 
siah is  perhaps  the  completest  expression  of 
the  religious  sentiment  of  an  age  which  was 
consciously  bounded  by  space  and  time.  In 
Pope's  day,  the  world  was  scarcely  a  part  of 
a  greater  universe  ;  eternity  was  only  a  pro- 
longation of  time,  and  the  sense  of  beauty, 
acute  as  it  was,  was  always  sharply  defined. 
Pope's  rhymed  couplets,  with  their  absolute 
finality,  their  clean  conclusion,  their  epi- 
grammatic snap,  are  the  most  perfect  sym- 
bols of  the  English  mind  of  that  period. 
When  in  the  Messiah  we  read,  — 


134       CHILDHOOD  IN  LITERATURE 

"  Rapt  into  future  times  the  bard  be^un, 
A  Virgin  shall  conceive,  a  Virgin  bear  a  son! 

Swift  fly  the  years  and  rise  the  expected  mom ! 
O  spring  to  light,  auspicious  babe,  be  born !  " 

we  remember  Milton's  Infant  God.  The 
two  poets  touch,  with  a  like  faintness,  the 
childhood  of  Jesus,  but  the  one  through  awe 
and  grandeur  of  contemplation,  the  other 
through  the  polite  indifference  of  a  man  of 
the  world.  Or  take  Pope's  mundane  philos- 
ophy, as  exhibited  most  elaborately  in  his 
Essay  on  Man,  and  set  it  beside  Shake- 
speare's Seven  Ages  of  Man :  — 

"  Behold  the  child,  by  Nature's  kindly  law- 
Pleased  with  a  rattle,  tickled  with  a  straw  : 
Some  livelier  plaything  gives  his  youth  delight, 
A  little  louder,  but  as  empty  quite  : 
Scarfs,  garters,  gold,  amuse  his  riper  stage, 
And  beads  and  prayer-books  are  the  toys  of  age  ; 
Pleased  with  this  bauble  still,  as  that  before  ; 
Till  tired  he  sleeps  and  life's  poor  play  is  o'er." 

This  is  the  only  passage  in  the  Essay  hinting 
at  childhood,  and  suffices  to  indicate  how 
entirely  insignificant  in  the  eyes  of  the  phi- 
losophy underlying  Pope  and  his  school  was 
the  whole  thought  of  childhood.  The  pas- 
sage,  while  not  perhaps  consciously  imitative 
of   Shakespeare,  suggests   comparison,  and 


IN  ENGLISH  LITERATURE  135 

one  finds  in  Jaques  under  the  greenwood  a 
more  human  feeling.  Commend  us  to  the 
tramp  before  the  drawing-room  philosopher  ! 

The  prelusive  notes  of  a  new  literature 
were  sounded  by  Fielding,  Gray,  Goldsmith^ 
N  and  Cowper.    It  was  to  be  a  literature  which 

touched  the  earth  again,  the  earth  of  a 
common  nature,  the  earth  also  of  a  national 
inheritance. 

Fielding,  though  painting  contemporary 
society  in  a  manner  borrowed  in  a  measure 
from  the  satiric  drama,  was  moving  con- 
stantly into  the  freer  domain  of  the  novelist 
who  is  a  critic  of  life,  and  when  he  would 
set  forth  the  indestructible  force  of  a  pure 
nature  in  a  woman  who  is  placed  in  a 
loose  society,  as  in  Amelia,  he  instinctively 
hedges  the  wife  about  with  children,  and  it 
is  a  mark  of  his  art  that  these  children  are 
not  mere  pawns  which  are  moved  about  to 
protect  the  queen  ;  they  are  genuine  figures, 
their  prattle  is  natural,  and  they  are  con- 
stantly illustrating  in  the  most  innocent 
fashion  the  steatlfastness  of  Amelia. 

It  is  significant  that  Gray,  ^vith  his  deli- 
cate taste  and  fine  classical  scholarship, 
when    he   composed    his    Elegy   used   fii*st 


136       CHILDHOOD  IN  LITERATURE 

the   names   of   eminent   Romans    when  he 

wrote :  — 

"  Some  village  Cato,  who  with  dauntless  breast 
The  little  tyrant  of  the  fields  withstood ; 
Some  mute,  inglorious  Tully  here  may  rest, 
Some  Csesar,  guiltless  of  his  country's  blood." 

He  changed  these  names  for  those  of  Eng- 
lish heroes,  and  in  doing  so  broke  away  from 
traditions  which  still  had  a  strong  hold  in 
literature.  It  is  a  pity  that  for  a  reason 
which  hardly  convinces  us  he  should  have 
thought  best  to  omit  the  charming  stanza, — 

"  There,  scattered  oft,  the  earliest  of  the  year, 
By  hands  unseen  are  showers  of  violets  found : 
The  Red-breast  loves  to  build  and  warble  there. 
And  little  footsteps  lightly  print  the  ground." 

When  Gray  wrote  this  he  doubtless  had  in 
mind  the  ballad  of  the  Children  in  the 
Wood.  In  the  succession  of  English  pic- 
tures which  he  does  give  is  that  lovely  one,  — 

"  For  them  no  more  the  blazing  hearth  shall  burn, 
Or  busy  housewife  ply  her  evening's  care ; 
No  children  run  to  lisp  their  sire's  return. 

Or  climb  his  knees  the  evening  kiss  to  share." 

In  his  poem  On  a  Distant  Prospect  of 
Eton  College  he  has  lines  which  are  instinct 
with  a  feeling  for  childhood  and  youth. 
There  is,  it  is  true,  a  touch  of  artificiality 


IN  ENGLISH  LITERATURE  137 

in  the  use  made  of  childhood  in  this  poem, 
as  a  foil  for  tried  manhood,  its  little  life 
treated  as  the  lost  golden  age  of  mankind ; 
but  that  sentiment  was  a  prevailing  one  in 
the  period. 

Goldsmith,  whose  Bohemianism  helped  to 
release  him  from  subservience  to  declining 
fashions  in  literature,  treats  childhood  in  a 
more  genuine  and  artless  fashion.  In  his 
prose  and  poetry  I  hear  the  first  faint  notes 
of  that  song  of  childhood  which  in  a  genera- 
tion more  was  to  burst  from  many  lips.  The 
sweetness  which  trembles  in  the  Deserted 
Village  finds  easy  expression  in  forms  and 
images  which  call  up  childhood  to  memory, 
as  in  those  lines,  — 

"  The  playful  children  just  let  loose  from  school," 

"  E'en  children  followed  with  endearing  wile, 
And   plucked   his   gown,    to    share    the    good   man's 
smile,"  — 

and  in  the  quaint  picture  of  the  village 
school. 

It  is  in  the  Vicar  of  Wakefield,  however, 
that  one  finds  the  freest  play  of  fancy  about 
childish  figures.  Goldsmith  says  of  his  hero 
tliat  "  he  unites  in  himself  the  three  greatest 
characters   upon   earth,  —  he  is  a  priest,  a 


138       CHILDHOOD  IN  LITERATURE 

husbandman,  and  the  father  of  a  family  ; " 
and  the  whole  of  the  significant  preface  may 
lead  one  to  revise  the  estimate  of  Goldsmith 
which  his  contemporaries  have  fastened  upon 
English  literary  history.  The  waywardness 
and  unconventionality  of  this  man  of  genius 
and  his  eager  desire  to  be  accepted  by  the 
world,  which  was  then  the  great  world,  were 
the  characteristics  which  most  impressed  the 
shallower  minds  about  him.  In  truth,  he 
had  not  only  an  extraordinary  sympathy 
with  the  ever-varying,  ever-constant  flux  of 
human  life,  but  he  dropped  a  deeper  plum- 
met than  any  English  thinker  since  Milton. 
It  was  in  part  his  loneliness  that  threw 
him  upon  children  for  complete  sympathy  ; 
in  part  also  his  prophetic  sense,  for  he  had 
an  unerring  vision  of  what  constituted  the 
strength  and  the  weakness  of  England. 
After  the  portraiture  of  the  Vicar  himseK, 
there  are  no  finer  sketches  than  those  of  the 
little  children.  "  It  would  be  fruitless," 
says  the  unworldly  Vicar,  "  to  deny  exulta- 
tion when  I  saw  my  little  ones  about  me  ;  " 
and  from  time  to  time  in  the  tale,  the 
youngest  children,  Dick  and  Bill,  trot  for- 
ward in  an  entirely  natural  manner.  They 
show  an  engaging  fondness  for  Mr.  Thorn- 


IN  ENGLISH  LITERATURE         139 

hill.  "  The  whole  family  seemed  earnest  to 
please  him.  .  .  .  My  little  ones  were  no  less 
busy,  and  fondly  stuck  close  to  the  stranger. 
All  my  endeavors  could  scarcely  keep  their 
dirty  fingers  from  handling  and  tarnishing 
the  lace  on  his  clothes,  and  lifting  up  the 
flaps  of  his  pocket  holes  to  see  what  was 
there."  The  character  of  Mr.  Burchell  is 
largely  drawn  by  its  association  with  the 
children.  The  account  given  by  little  Dick 
of  the  carrying  off  of  Olivia  is  full  of  charm- 
ing childish  spirit,  and  there  is  an  exquisite 
passage  where  the  Vicar  returns  home  with 
the  news  of  Olivia's  recovery,  and  discovers 
his  house  to  be  on  fire,  while  in  a  tumult  of 
confusion  the  older  members  of  the  family 
rush  out  of  the  dwelling. 

"I  gazed  upon  them  and  upon  it  by 
turns,"  proceeds  the  Vicar,  "  and  then  looked 
roimd  me  for  my  two  little  ones ;  but  they 
were  not  to  be  seen.  O  misery !  '  Where,' 
cried  I,  '  where  are  my  little  ones  ? '  '  Theji 
are  burnt  to  death  in  the  flames,'  says  my 
wife  calmly,  '  and  I  will  die  with  them.' 
That  moment  I  heard  the  cry  of  the  babe^ 
within,  who  were  just  awaked  by  the  fire^ 
and  nothing  could  have  stopped  me, 
'  Where,  where  are  my  children  ? '  cried  ly 


140       CHILDHOOD  IN  LITEBATURE 

rusting  through  the  flames,  and  bursting  the 
door  of  the  chamber  in  which  they  were  con- 
fined. '  Where  are  my  little  ones  ? '  '  Here, 
dear  papa,  here  we  are ! '  cried  they  together, 
while  the  flames  were  just  catching  the  bed 
where  they  lay.  I  caught  them  both  in  my 
arms,  and  snatching  them  through  the  fire 
as  fast  as  possible,  just  as  I  was  got  out  the 
roof  sunk  in.  '  Now,'  cried  I,  holding  up 
my  children,  'now  let  the  flames  burn  on, 
and  all  my  possessions  perish.  Here  they 
are.  I  have  saved  my  treasure.  Here,  my 
dearest,  here  are  our  treasures,  and  we  shall 
yet  be  happy.'  We  kissed  our  little  darlings 
a  thousand  times  ;  they  clasped  us  round 
the  neck,  and  seemed  to  share  our  trans- 
ports, while  their  mother  laughed  and  wept 
by  turns." 

Cowper  was  more  secluded  from  his  time 
and  its  influence  than  Goldsmith,  but  like 
him  he  felt  the  instinct  for  a  return  to  the 
elemental  in  life  and  nature.  The  gentle- 
ness of  Cowper,  combined  with  a  poetic  sen- 
sibility, found  expression  in  simple  themes. 
His  life,  led  in  a  pastoral  country,  and  occu. 
pied  with  trivial  pleasures,  offered  him  prim- 
itive material,  and  he  sang  of  hares,  and 
goldfish,  and  children.     His  Tirocinium,  or 


IN  ENGLISH  ART  141 

a  Review  of  Schools,  though  having  a  didac- 
tic intention,  has  some  charming  bits  of 
descriptive  writing,  as  in  the  familiar  lines 
which  describe  the  sport  of 

"The  little  ones,  unbuttoned,  glowing  hot." 

The  description  melts,  as  do  so  many  of  Cow- 
per's  retrospections,  into  a  tender  melancholy. 
A  deeper  note  still  is  struck  in  his  Lines  on 
the  Receipt  of  my  Mother's  Picture. 

The  new  birth  which  was  coming  to  Eng- 
land had  its  premonitions  in  literature.  It 
had  them  also  in  art.  In  this  period  ap- 
peared Sir  Joshua  Reynolds  and  Gains- 
borough :  the  one  preeminently  a  painter  of 
humanity,  the  other  of  nature,  and  both  of 
them  moved  by  a  spirit  of  freedom,  under 
well-recognized  academic  rules.  There  is  in 
their  work  a  lingering  of  the  old  formal 
character  which  took  sharp  account  of  the 
diversities  of  rank,  and  separated  things 
common  from  things  choice ;  yet  they  both 
belong  to  the  new  world  rather  than  to  the 
old,  and  in  nothing  is  this  more  remarkable 
than  in  the  number  and  character  of  the 
children  pieces  painted  by  Reynolds.  They 
are  a  delight  to  the  eye,  and  in  the  true 


142       CHILDHOOD  IN  LITERATURE 

democracy  of  art  we  know  no  distinction  be- 
tween Master  Crewe  as  Henry  VIII.  and  a 
Boy  with  a  Child  on  his  back  and  cabbage 
nets  in  his  hand.  What  a  revelation  of 
childhood  is  in  this  great  group !  There  is 
the  tenderness  of  the  Children  in  the  Wood, 
the  peace  of  the  Sleeping  Child,  where  na- 
ture itseK  is  in  slumber,  the  timidity  of  the 
Strawberry  Girl,  the  wildness  of  the  Gypsy 
Boy,  the  shy  grace  of  Pickaback,  the  delight- 
ful wonder  of  Master  Bunbury,  the  sweet 
simplicity  and  innocence  in  the  pictures  so 
named,  and  the  spiritual  yet  human  bpauty 
of  the  Angels'  heads.  Reynolds  studied  the 
work  of  the  mediaeval  painters,  but  he  came 
back  to  England  and  painted  English  chil- 
dren. Goldsmith's  Vicar,  Cowper's  Lines 
on  his  mother's  portrait,  and  Reynold's  chil- 
dren bring  us  close  to  the  heart  of  our  sub- 
ject. 

II 

It  was  the  saying  of  the  Swedish  seer 
Count  Swedenborg,  that  a  Day  of  Judgment 
was  to  come  upon  men  at  the  time  of  the 
French  Revolution.  Then  were  the  spirits 
to  be  judged.  In  whatever  terms  we  may  ex- 
press the  fact,  clear  it  is  to  us  that  the  close 


IN  ENGLISH  LITERATURE  143 

of  the  last  century  marks  a  great  epoch  in 
the  history  of  Christendom,  and  the  far- 
ther we  withdraw  from  the  events  which 
gather  about  our  own  birth  as  an  organized 
nation,  and  those  which  effected  such  enor- 
mous changes  in  European  life,  the  more 
clearly  do  we  perceive  that  the  movements  of 
the  present  century  are  mainly  along  lines 
which  may  be  traced  back  to  genetic  begin- 
nings then.  There  was  indeed  a  great  awak- 
ening, a  renaissance,  a  new  birth. 

The  French  Revolution  was  a  sign  of  the 
times :  it  furnishes  a  convenient  name  for  an 
epoch,  not  merely  because  important  changes 
in  Christendom  were  contemporaneous  with 
it,  but  because  they  were  intimately  asso- 
ciated with  it.  Then  appeared  the  portent 
of  Democracy,  and  the  struggle  of  human- 
ity has  ever  since  been  for  the  realization 
of  dreams  which  came  as  visions  of  a  great 
hope.  Then  began  that  examination  of  the 
foundation  of  things  in  science  and  philos- 
ophy which  has  become  a  mighty  passion  in 
intellectual  life. 

I  have  said  that  every  great  renaissance 
has  left  its  record  in  the  recognition  which 
childhood  receives  in  literature  and  art.  I 
add  that  the  scope  and  profundity  of  that 


144       CHILDHOOD  IN  LITERATURE 

renaissance  may  be  measured  by  the  form 
which  this  recognition  takes.  At  the  birth 
of  Christianity  the  pregnant  sentences,  "  Ex- 
cept ye  become  as  little  children  ye  shall  not 
enter  the  kingdom  of  heaven,"  "  For  of  such 
is  the  kingdom  of  heaven,"  "  Verily  I  say 
unto  you,  their  angels  do  always  behold 
the  face  of  my  Father  in  heaven,"  sound  a 
depth  unreached  before.  They  were,  like 
other  words  from  the  same  source,  veritable 
prophecies,  the  perfect  fulfillment  of  which 
waits  the  perfect  manifestation  of  the  Son 
of  Man.  At  the  Renaissance,  when  medi- 
aevalism  gave  way  before  modern  life,  art 
reflected  the  hopes  of  mankind  in  the  face  of 
a  divine  child.  At  the  great  Revolution, 
when,  amidst  fire  and  blood,  the  new  life  of 
humanity  stood  revealed,  an  unseen  hand 
again  took  a  little  child  and  placed  him  in 
the  midst  of  men.  It  was  reserved  for  an 
English  poet  to  be  the  one  who  most  clearly 
discerned  the  face  of  the  child.  Himself 
one  of  the  great  order  of  angels,  he  beheld 
in  the  child  the  face  of  God.  I  may  be  par- 
doned, I  trust,  for  thus  reading  in  Western 
fashion  the  meaning  of  that  Oriental  phrase 
which  I  find  has  perplexed  theologians  and 
Biblical  critics.     Was  it  any  new  disclosure 


IN  ENGLISH  LITERATURE  145 

which  the  Christ  made  if  he  merely  said  that 
the  attendant  ministers  of  children  always 
beheld  the  face  of  the  Father  in  heaven  ? 
Was  it  not  the  very  property  of  such  angelic 
nature  that  it  should  see  God  ?  But  was  it 
not  rather  a  revelation  to  the  crass  minds  of 
those  who  thrust  children  aside,  that  the  an- 
gels who  moved  between  the  Father  of  spirits 
and  these  new-comers  into  the  world  saw  in 
their  faces  a  witness  to  their  divine  origin  ? 
They  saw  the  Father  repeated  in  the  child. 

When  Wordsworth  published  his  Lyrical 
Ballads,  a  storm  of  ridicule  fell  upon  them. 
In  that  age,  when  the  old  and  the  new  were 
clashing  with  each  other  on  every  hand,  so 
stark  a  symbol  of  the  new  as  these  ballads  pre- 
sented could  not  fail  to  furnish  an  objective 
point  for  criticism  which  was  born  of  the 
old.  Wordswoi-th,  in  liis  defensive  Preface, 
declares,  "The  principal  object  proposed  in 
these  Poems  was  to  choose  incidents  and  sit- 
uations from  common  life,  and  to  relate  or 
describe  them  throughout,  as  far  as  was  pos- 
sible, in  a  selection  of  language  really  used 
by  men,  and,  at  the  same  time,  to  throw 
over  them  a  certain  coloring  of  imagination, 
whereby  ordinary  things  should  be  presented 
to  the  mind  in  an  miusual  aspect ;  and  fiu*- 


146       CHILDHOOD  IN  LITERATURE 

ther,  and  above  all,  to  make  these  incidents 
and  situations  interesting,  by  tracing  in 
them,  truly  though  not  ostentatiously,  the 
primary  laws  of  our  nature ;  chiefly  as  far 
as  regards  the  manner  in  which  we  associate 
ideas  in  a  state  of  excitement.  Humble  and 
rustic  life  was  generally  chosen,  because,  in 
that  condition,  the  essential  passions  of  the 
heart  find  a  better  soil  in  which  they  can 
attain  their  maturity,  are  less  under  re- 
straint, and  speak  a  plainer  and  more  em- 
phatic language ;  because  in  that  condition 
of  life  our  elementary  feelings  coexist  in  a 
state  of  greater  simplicity,  and,  consequently, 
may  be  more  accurately  contemplated  and 
more  forcibly  communicated;  because  the 
manners  of  rural  life  germinate  from  those 
elementary  feelings,  and,  from  the  necessary 
character  of  rural  occupations,  are  more 
easily  comprehended,  and  are  more  durable ; 
and,  lastly,  because  in  that  condition  the 
passions  of  men  are  incorporated  with  the 
beautiful  and  permanent  forms  of  nature." 

Every  one  of  these  reasons,  unless  the 
last,  which  I  do  not  understand,  be  excepted, 
applies  with  additional  force  to  the  use  of 
forms  and  images  and  incidents  drawn  from 
childhood;  and   though  Wordsworth   takes 


IN  ENGLISH  LITERATURE  147 

no  account  of  this  in  his  Preface,  it  is  more 
to  the  point  that  he  does  freely  and  fully 
recognize  the  fact  in  his  poetry.  The  Pref- 
ace, with  its  dry  formality,  was  like  much 
of  Wordsworth's  poetry,  —  Pegasus  on  a 
walk,  his  wings  impeding  free  action.  It  is 
one  of  the  anomalies  of  nature  that  a  poet 
with  such  insight  as  Wordsworth  should 
never  apparently  have  discovered  his  own 
pragmatical  dullness.  It  seems  to  me  that 
Wordsworth's  finer  moods  were  just  those 
of  which  he  never  attempted  to  give  a  philo- 
sophic account,  and  that  he  did  not  refer  to 
childhood  in  his  Preface  is  an  evidence  of 
his  inspiration  when  dealing  with  it. 

Be  this  as  it  may,  his  treatment  of  child- 
hood accords  with  his  manifesto  to  the  British 
public.  Could  anything  be  more  trivial,  as 
judged  by  the  standards  of  the  day,  than 
his  ballad  of  Alice  Fell,  or  Poverty  ?  —  of 
which  he  has  himself  said,  "The  humble- 
ness, meanness  if  you  like,  of  the  subject, 
together  with  the  homely  mode  of  treating 
it,  brought  upon  me  a  world  of  ridicule  by 
the  small  critics,  so  that  in  policy  I  excluded 
it  from  many  editions  of  my  Poems,  till  it 
was  restored  at  the  request  of  some  of  my 
friends,  in  particular  my  son-iu-law,  Edward 


148       CHILDHOOD  IN  LITERATURE 

Quillinan."  What  is  the  motive  of  a  poem 
which  excited  such  derision  that  the  poet  in 
a  moment  of  alarm  withdrew  it  from  publi- 
cation, and  when  he  restored  it  held  his  son- 
in-law  responsible  ?  Simply  the  grief  of  a 
poor  child,  who  had  stolen  a  ride  behind  the 
poet's  post-chaise,  upon  finding  that  her  tat- 
tered cloak  had  become  caught  in  the  wheel 
and  irretrievably  ruined.  The  poet  makes 
no  attempt  to  dignify  this  grief ;  the  inci- 
dent is  related  in  poetic  form,  but  without 
any  poetic  discovery  beyond  the  simple 
worth  of  the  grief.  It  is,  perhaps,  the  most 
audaciously  matter  of  fact  of  all  Words- 
worth's poems  ;  and  yet,  such  is  the  differ- 
ence in  the  audience  to-day  from  what  it  was 
in  Wordsworth's  time  that  Alice  Fell  ap- 
pears as  a  matter  of  course  in  all  the  anthol- 
ogies for  children,  and  is  read  by  men  and 
women  with  positive  sympathy,  with  a  ten- 
derness for  the  forlorn  little  girl,  and  with- 
out a  question  as  to  the  poem's  right  of  ex- 
istence. The  misery,  the  grief  of  childhood, 
is  conceived  of  as  a  real  thing,  measured  by 
the  child's  mind  into  which  we  enter,  and 
not  by  our  own  standards  of  pain  and  loss. 

Again,  recall  the  poem  of  Lucy  Gray,  or 
Solitude.     The  story  is  far  more  pathetic, 


IN  ENGLISH  LITERATURE  149 

and  has  an  appeal  to  more  catholic  sensibil- 
ity :  a  child,  sent  with  a  lantern  to  town 
from  the  moor  on  which  she  lives,  that  she 
may  light  her  mother  back  through  the  snow, 
is  lost  among  the  liiDs,  and  her  footsteps  are 
traced  at  last  to  the  fatal  bridge  tlu'ouo;h 
which  she  has  fallen.  The  incident  was  one 
from  real  life ;  Wordsworth  seized  upon  it, 
reproducing  each  detail,  and  with  a  touch  or 
two  of  genius  made  a  wraith.  He  discov- 
ered, as  no  one  before  had  done,  the  element 
of  solitude  in  childhood,  and  invested  it  with 
a  fine  spiritual,  ethereal  quality,  quite  devoid 
of  any  ethical  property,  —  a  subtle  commu- 
nity with  nature. 

How  completely  Wordsworth  entered  the 
mind  of  a  child  and  identified  himself  with 
its  movements  is  consciously  betrayed  in  his 
pastoral.  The  Pet  Lamb.  He  puts  into  the 
mouth  of  Barbara  Lewthwaite  the  imaginary 
song  to  her  lamb,  and  then  says  for  him- 
self, — 

"  As  homeward  through  the  lane  I  went  with  lazy  feet, 
This  song  to  myself  did  I  oftentimes  repeat ; 
And  it  seemed,  as  I  retraced  the  ballad  line  by  line, 
That  but  half  of  it  was  hers,  and  one  half  of  it  was 

mine. 
Again  and  once  again  did  I  repeat  the  song  ; 
Nay,  said  I,  more  than  half  to  the  damsel  must  belong, 


150       CHILDHOOD  IN  LITERATUBE 

For  she  looked  with  such  a  look  and  she  spake  with 

such  a  tone 
That  I  almost  received  her  heart  into  my  own." 

His  second  thought  was  best :  more  than 
half  did  belong  to  the  child,  for  he  himself 
was  but  the  wise  interpreter. 

Wordsworth's  incidents  of  childhood  are 
sometimes  given  a  purely  objective  charac- 
ter, as  in  Rural  Architecture,  The  Anecdote 
for  Fathers,  The  Idle  Shepherd  Boys ;  but 
more  often  childhood  is  to  him  the  occasion 
and  suggestion  of  the  deeper  thought  of  life. 
A  kitten,  playing  with  falling  leaves  before 
the  poet  and  his  child  Dora,  leads  him  on 
by  exquisite  movement  to  the  thought  of  his 
own  decay  of  life.  But  what  impresses  us 
most  is  the  twofold  conception  of  childhood 
as  a  part  of  nature,  and  as  containing  within 
itself  not  only  the  germ  of  human  life,  but 
the  echo  of  the  divine.  There  are  poems  of 
surpassing  beauty  which  so  blend  the  child 
and  nature  that  we  might  almost  fancy,  as 
we  look  upon  the  poetical  landscape,  that  we 
are  mistaking  children  for  bushes,  or  bushes 
for  children.     Such  is  that  one  beginning 

"Three  years  she  grew  in  sun  and  shower," 
and 

"  Wisdom  and  Spirit  of  the  universe  I  " 


IN  ENGLISH  LITERATURE  151 

He  drew  images  from  his  children  and 
painted  a  deliberate  portrait  of  his  daughter 
Catharine,  solemnly  entitled,  Characteristics 
of  a  Child  Three  Years  Old. 

Yet,  though  Wordsworth  drew  many  sug- 
gestions from  his  own  children  and  from 
those  whom  he  saw  in  his  walks,  it  is  re- 
markable how  little  he  regards  children  in 
their  relation  to  parents  in  comparison  of 
their  individual  and  isolated  existence.  Be- 
fore Wordsworth,  the  child,  in  literature, 
was  almost  wholly  considered  as  one  of  a 
group,  as  a  part  of  a  family,  and  only  those 
phases  of  childhood  were  treated  which 
were  obvious  to  the  most  careless  observer. 
Wordsworth  —  and  here  is  the  notable  fact 
—  was  the  first  deliberately  to  conceive  of 
childhood  as  a  distinct,  individual  element 
of  human  life.  He  first,  to  use  a  truer 
phrase,  apprehended  the  personality  of  child- 
hood. He  did  this  and  gave  it  expression  in 
artistic  form  in  some  of  the  poems  already 
named  ;  he  did  it  methodically  and  with  phi- 
losophic intent  in  his  autobiographic  poem 
The  Prelude,  and  also  in  The  Excursion. 
Listen  how  he  speaks  of  his  infancy  even, 
giving  it  by  anticipation  a  life  separate  from 
mother  and  nurse.  "  Was  it  for  tliis  ?  "  he 
asks,  — 


152        CHILDHOOD  IN  LITERATURE 

' '  Was  it  for  this 
That  one,  the  fairest  of  all  rivers,  loved 
To  blend  his  murmurs  with  my  nurse's  song, 
And,  from  his  alder  shades  and  rocky  falls, 
And  from  his  fords  and  shallows,  sent  a  voice 
That  flowed  along  my  dreams  ?     For  this,  didst  thou, 
O  Derwent !  winding  among  grassy  holms 
Where  I  was  looking  on,  a  babe  in  arms, 
Make  ceaseless  music  that  composed  my  thoughts 
To  more  than  infant  softness,  giving  me 
Amid  the  fretful  dwellings  of  mankind 
A  foretaste,  a  dim  earnest,  of  the  calm 
That  Nature  breathes  among  the  hills  and  groves." 

Still  more  minutely  does  lie  disclose  the  con- 
sciousness of  childhood  in  his  record  of  the 
mind  of  the  Wanderer  in  The  Excursion,  in 
the  lines  beginning :  — 

"  From  his  sixth  year,  the  Boy  of  whom  I  speak 
In  summer  tended  cattle  on  the  hills." 

It  may  be  said  that  in  all  this  Words- 
worth is  simply  rehearsing  and  expanding 
an  exceptional  experience  ;  that  his  recollec- 
tion of  his  own  childhood  passed  through  the 
alembic  of  a  fervid  poetic  imagination.  Be 
it  so ;  we  are  not  so  much  concerned  to  know 
how  the  poet  came  by  this  divination,  as  to 
know  that  he  should  have  treated  it  as  uni- 
versal and  common  to  the  period  of  child- 
hood. Again  and  again  in  descriptive  poem, 
in  direct  address,  in  indirect  allusion,  he  so 


IN  ENGLISH  LITERATURE  153 

uses  this  knowledge  as  to  forbid  us  to  re- 
gard it  as  peculiar  and  exceptional  in  his 
own  view  ;  and  a  poet's  attestation  to  a  uni- 
versal experience  is  worth  more  than  any 
negation  which  comes  from  our  individual 
blurred  recollection.  'Wordsworth  discovers 
in  childhood  the  germ  of  humanity  ;  he  sees 
there  thoughts,  emotions,  activities,  suffer- 
ings, which  are  miniatures  of  the  maturer 
life,  —  but,  he  sees  more  than  this  and 
deeper.  To  him  the  child  is  not  a  pigmy 
man  ;  it  has  a  life  of  its  own,  out  of  wliich 
something  even  may  pass,  when  childhood  is 
left  behind.  It  is  not  the  ignorant  inno- 
cence of  childhood,  the  infantile  grace,  which 
holds  him,  but  a  certain  childish  possession, 
in  which  he  sees  a  spiritual  presence  ob- 
scured in  conscious  youth.  Landor  in  one 
of  his  Imaginary  Conversations  stoutly  as- 
serts a  similar  fact  when  he  says,  "  Children 
are  not  men  or  women ;  they  are  almost  as 
different  creatures,  in  many  respects,  as  if 
they  never  were  to  be  one  or  the  other ;  they 
are  as  unlike  as  buds  are  unlike  flowers,  and 
almost  as  blossoms  are  unlike  fruits."  ^ 

In   all  this    again,    in    this    echo  of    the 
divine  which  Wordsworth  hears  in  the  voice 
^  Epicurus,  Leontion,  and  Ternissa, 


154       CHILDHOOD  IN  LITERATURE 

of  childhood,  there  is  reference,  psychologi- 
cally, to  his  own  jDcrsonal  experience.  Yet 
why  should  we  treat  that  as  ruled  out  of  evi- 
dence, which  only  one  here  and  another 
there  acknowledges  as  a  part  of  his  history  ? 
Is  it  not  fairer,  more  reasonable,  to  take  the 
experience  of  a  profound  poet  as  the  basis 
of  spiritual  truth  than  the  negative  testi- 
mony of  those  whose  eyes  lack  the  wondrous 
power  of  seeing  ?  In  the  preface  to  his  ode, 
Intimations  of  Immortality  from  the  Recol- 
lections of  Early  Childhood,  Wordsworth 
declares  with  great  earnestness :  — 

"To  the  attentive  and  competent  reader 
the  whole  sufficiently  explains  itself ;  but 
there  may  be  no  harm  in  adverting  here  to 
particular  feelings  or  experiences  of  my  own 
mind,  on  which  the  structure  of  the  poem 
partly  rests.  Nothing  was  more  difficult  for 
me  in  childhood  than  to  admit  the  notion  of 
death  as  a  state  applicable  to  my  own  being. 
I  have  said  elsewhere  — 

'  A  simple  child 
That  lightly  draws  its  breath, 
And  feels  its  life  in  every  limb, 
What  should  it  know  of  death  ! ' 

But  it  was  not  so  much  from  feelings  of  ani- 
mal vivacity  that  my  difficulty  came,  as  from 


IN  ENGLISH  LITERATURE  155 

a  sense  of  the  indomitableness  of  the  spirit 
within  me.  I  used  to  brood  over  the  stories 
of  Enoch  and  Elijah,  and  abnost  to  persuade 
myself  that,  whatever  might  become  of 
others,  I  should  be  translated,  in  something 
of  the  same  way,  to  heaven.  With  a  feeling 
congenial  to  this,  I  was  often  unable  to 
think  of  external  existence,  and  I  communed 
with  all  that  I  saw  as  something  not  apart 
from,  but  inherent  in  my  own  immaterial 
nature.  Many  times,  while  going  to  school, 
have  I  grasped  at  a  wall  or  tree  to  recall  my- 
self from  the  abyss  of  idealism  to  the  reality. 
At  that  time  I  was  afraid  of  such  processes. 
In  later  periods  of  life  I  have  deplored,  as 
we  all  have  reason  to  do,  a  subjugation  of 
an  opposite  character." 

Here  Wordsworth  defends  the  philosophy 
of  the  poem  by  making  it  an  induction  from 
his  own  experience.  There  wiU  be  found 
many  to  question  its  truth,  because  they  have 
no  recollections  which  correspond  with  the 
poet's ;  and  others  who  will  claim  that  the 
poem  is  but  a  fancifid  argimient  in  behalf 
of  the  philosophic  heresy  of  a  preexistent 
state.  In  my  judgment,  Wordsworth's  pref- 
ace is  somewhat  misleading  by  its  reference 
to   this    theory,  although  he    has  furnished 


156       CHILDHOOD  IN  LITERATURE 

hints  in  tlie  same  preface  of  liis  more  inte- 
gral thought.  As  I  have  noticed  before,  his 
artistic  presentation  is  truer  and  more  final 
than  his  exegesis.  Whoever  reads  this 
great  ode  is  aware  of  the  rise  and  fall  of  the 
tide  of  thought ;  he  hears  the  poet  reason- 
ing with  himself ;  he  sees  him  passing  in 
imagination  out  of  childhood  into  age,  yet 
constantly  recovering  himseK  to  fresh  per- 
ception of  the  immortality  which  transcends 
earthly  life.  It  is  visible  childhood  with  its 
intimation  of  immortality  wliich  brings  to 
the  poet,  not  regret  for  what  is  irretrievably 
lost,  but  firmer  faith  in  the  reality  of  the 
unseen  and  eternal.  The  confusion  into 
which  some  have  been  cast  by  the  ode  arises 
from  their  bringing  to  the  idea  of  immortal- 
ity the  time  conception;  they  conceive  the 
poet  to  be  hinting  of  an  indefinite  time  ante- 
dating the  child's  birth,  an  indefinite  time 
extending  beyond  the  man's  death,  whereas 
Wordsworth's  conception  of  immortality 
rests  in  the  indestructibility  of  spirit  by  any 
temporal  or  earthly  conditions,  —  an  inde- 
structibility which  even  implies  an  absence 
of  beginning  as  well  as  of  ending. 

"Heaven  lies  about  iisin  oiir  infancy," 


IN  ENGLISH  LITERATURE  157 

he  declares.  It  is  the  investment  of  this 
visible  life  by  an  unseen,  unfelt,  yet  real 
spiritual  presence  for  which  he  contends,  and 
he  maintains  that  the  inmost  consciousness 
of  childhood  bears  witness  to  this  truth  ;  this 
consciousness  fades  as  the  earthly  life  pene- 
trates the  soul,  yet  it  is  there  and  recurs  in 
sudden  moments. 

"  Hence  in  a  season  of  calm  weather, 

Though  inland  far  we  be, 
Our  Souls  have  sight  of  that  immortal  sea 

Which  brought  us  hither, 

Can  in  a  moment  travel  thither. 
And  see  the  Children  sport  upon  the  shore. 
And  hear  the  mighty  waters  rolling  evermore." 

In  thus  connecting  childhood  with  the 
highest  hope  of  the  human  race,  Words- 
worth was  repeating  the  note  which  twice 
before  had  been  struck  in  great  epochs  of 
htistory.  This  third  renaissance  was  the 
awaking  of  the  human  soul  to  a  sense  of 
the  common  rights  and  duties  of  humanity, 
the  dignity  and  worth  of  the  Person. 

The  poetic  form,  while  most  perfectly  in- 
closing these  divinations  of  childhood,  and 
especially  suited  to  the  presentation  of  the 
faint  and  elusive  elements,  is  less  adapted  to 
the  philosophic  and  discursive  examination 


158       CHILDHOOD  IN  LITERATURE 

of  the  subject  of  childhood.  It  is,  then,  an 
indication  of  the  impression  which  the  idea 
had  made  upon  men  that  a  prose  writer 
of  the  period,  of  singular  insight  and  sub- 
tlety, should  have  given  some  of  his  most 
characteristic  thought  to  an  examination  of 
the  essential  elements  of  childliood.  De 
Quincey  was  undoubtedly  strongly  affected 
by  Wordsworth's  treatment  of  the  subject ; 
he  has  left  evidence  upon  this  point.  Never- 
theless, he  appears  to  have  sounded  his  own 
mind  and  appealed  to  his  own  memory  for 
additional  and  corroborative  testimony.  In 
his  Suspiria  de  Profundis,  a  sequel  to  the 
Confessions  of  an  English  Opium-Eater,  he 
offers  an  account  of  his  recollections  of  in- 
fancy, together  with  many  reflections  upon 
the  experience  which  he  then  underwent. 
If  it  be  said  that  the  opium-eater  was  an 
untrustworthy  witness,  since  his  dreaming 
might  well  lead  him  to  confuse  the  subtle 
workings  of  a  mature  mind  with  the  vivid 
remembrance  of  one  or  two  striking  events 
of  childhood,  we  may  consider  that  De 
Quincey's  imagination  was  a  powerful  one, 
and  capable  of  interpreting  the  incidents 
and  emotions  brought  to  it  by  memory,  as  a 
more  prosaic  mind  could  not.     We  are  com- 


\ 


IN  ENGLISH  LITERATURE  159 

pelled,  of  course,  in  all  such  cases,  to  submit 
the  testimony  of  such  a  man  to  the  judgment 
of  our  own  reason,  but  that  reason  ought, 
before  pronouncing  a  final  verdict,  to  be 
educated  to  perceive  the  possibilities  of  a 
wider  range  of  observation  than  may  have 
fallen  to  us  individually,  and  to  submit  the 
residts  to  a  comparison  with  known  opera- 
tions of  the  human  mind.  Above  all,  it 
should  be  borne  in  mind  that  a  distinction 
clearly  exists  between  a  child's  conscious- 
ness and  its  power  of  expression.  De  Quin- 
cey  himself  in  a  note  says  with  acuteness 
and  justice :  — 

"  The  reader  must  not  forget  in  reading 
this  and  other  passages  that  though  a  child's 
feelings  are  spoken  of,  it  is  not  the  child 
who  speaks.  I  decipher  what  the  child  only 
felt  in  cipher.  And  so  far  is  this  distinction 
or  this  explanation  from  pointing  to  anything 
metaphysical  or  doubtful,  that  a  man  must 
be  grossly  unobservant  who  is  not  aware  of 
what  I  am  here  noticing,  not  as  a  peculiarity 
of  this  child  or  that,  but  as  a  necessity  of  all 
children.  Whatsoever  in  a  man's  mind  blos- 
soms and  expands  to  his  own  consciousness 
in  mature  life  must  have  preexisted  in  germ 
dui'ing  his  infancy.    I,  for  instance,  did  not, 


<r 


160       CHILDHOOD  IN  LITERATURE 

as  a  child,  consciously  read  in  my  own  deep 
feelings  these  ideas.  No,  not  at  all;  nor 
was  it  possible  for  a  child  to  do  so.  I,  the 
child,  had  the  feelings  ;  I,  the  man,  decipher 
them.  In  the  child  lay  the  handwriting  mys- 
terious to  him  ;  in  me,  the  interpretation  and 
the  comment." 

Assuredly  this  is  reasonable,  and  since 
we  are  looking  for  the  recognition  of  child- 
hood in  literature,  we  may  wisely  ask  how 
it  presents  itself  to  a  man  like  De  Quincey, 
who  had  peculiar  power  in  one  form  of 
literature  —  the  autobiograpliic-imaginative. 
He  entitles  the  first  part  of  his  Suspiria, 
The  Affliction  of  Childhood.  It  is  the 
record  of  a  child's  grief,  interpreted  by  the 
man  when  he  coidd  translate  into  speech 
the  emotion  which  possessed  him  in  his 
early  suffering  ;  and  near  its  close,  De  Quin- 
cey, partially  summing  up  his  philosophy  of 
the  subject,  declares  :  — 

"  God  speaks  to  children,  also,  in  dreams 
and  by  the  oracles  that  lurk  in  darkness. 
But  in  solitude,  above  all  things  when  made 
vocal  by  the  truths  and  services  of  a  na- 
tional church,  God  holds  communion  undis- 
turbed with  children.  Solitude,  though 
silent  as  light,  is  like  light  the  mightiest  of 


IN  ENGLISH  LITERATURE  161 

agencies  ;  for  solitude  is  essential  to  man. 
All  men  come  into  tliis  world  alone ;  all 
leave  it  alone.  Even  a  little  child  lias  a 
dread,  whispering-  consciousness  that  i£  he 
should  be  summoned  to  travel  into  God's 
presence,  no  gentle  nurse  will  be  allowed  to 
lead  him  by  the  hand,  nor  mother  to  carry 
him  in  her  arms,  nor  little  sister  to  share 
his  trepidations.  King  and  priest,  warrior 
and  maiden,  philosopher  and  child,  all  must 
walk  those  mighty  galleries  alone.  The 
solitude,  therefore,  which  in  this  world  ap- 
palls or  fascinates  a  child's  heart,  is  but  the 
echo  of  a  far  deeper  solitude,  through  which 
already  he  has  passed,  and  of  another  soli- 
tude, deeper  still,  through  which  he  has  to 
pass ;  reflex  of  one  solitude,  prefiguration  of 
another. 

"  Deeper  than  the  deepest  of  solitudes  is 
that  which  broods  over  childhood,  brins^inef 
before  it,  at  intervals,  the  final  solitude 
which  watches  for  it,  within  the  gates  of 
death.  Reader,  I  tell  you  in  truth,  and 
hereafter  I  will  convince  you  of  tliis  truth, 
that  for  a  Grecian  child  solitude  was  no- 
thing, but  for  a  Christian  child  it  has  be- 
come the  power  of  God  and  the  mystery  of 
God.     O  mighty  and  essential  solitude,  that 


162         CHILDHOOD  IN  LITERATURE 

wast  and  art  and  art  to  be!  thou,  kin- 
dling under  the  touch  .of  Christian  revela- 
tions, art  now  transfigured  forever,  and  hast 
passed  from  a  blank  negation  into  a  secret 
hieroglyphic  from  God,  shadowing  in  the 
hearts  of  infancy  the  very  dimmest  of  his 
truths !  " 

I  must  refer  the  reader  to  the  entire  chap- 
ter for  a  full  exposition  of  De  Quincey's 
views  on  this  subject.  Despite  the  bravura 
style,  which  makes  us  in  our  soberer  days 
listen  a  little  incredulously  to  these  far- 
fetched sighs  and  breathings,  the  passage 
quoted  bears  testimony  to  that  apprehension 
of  childhood  which  De  Quincey  shared  with 
Wordsworth.  Both  of  these  writers  were 
looked  upon  in  their  day  as  somewhat  re- 
actionary in  their  poetical  philosophy;  so 
much  the  more  valuable  is  their  declaration 
of  a  poetical  and  philosophical  faith  which 
was  fundamentally  in  unison  with  the  politi- 
cal faith  that  lay  behind  the  outburst  of  the 
French  Eevolution.  The  discovery  of  this 
new  continent  of  childhood  by  such  explor- 
ers of  the  spiritual  world  marks  the  age  as 
distinctly  as  does  the  discovery  of  new  lands 
and  explorations  in  the  earlier  renaissance. 
It  was  indeed  one  of  the  great  signs  of  the 


IN  ENGLISH  ART  163 

period  ushered  in  by  the  French  Revolu- 
tion and  the  establishment  of  the  American 
republic,  that  the  bounds  of  the  spiritual 
world  were  extended.  When  poverty  and 
childhood  were  annexed  to  the  poet's  do- 
main, the  world  of  literature  and  art  sud- 
denly became  larger. 

At  such  times  there  are  likely  to  be 
singular  exhibitions  of  genius,  which  are  ill- 
understood  in  contemporary  life,  but  ar^ 
perceived  by  later  observers  to  be  part 
and  parcel  of  the  age  in  which  they  occur. 
Something  like  this  may  be  said  of  the 
pictures  and  poems  of  William  Blake,  who 
was  a  visionary  in  a  time  when  a  red  flame 
along  the  horizon  made  his  spiritual  fires 
invisible.  He  has  since  been  rediscovered, 
and  has  been  for  a  generation  so  potent  an 
influence  in  English  art  that  we  may  wisely 
attend  to  him,  not  merely  as  a  person  of 
genius,  but  as  furnishing  an  illustration  of 
some  of  the  deep  things  of  our  subject. 

No  one  acquainted  with  Blake's  work  has 
failed  to  observe  the  recurrence  of  a  few 
types  drawn  from  elemental  figures.  The 
lamb,  the  child,  the  old  man,  —  these  appear 
and  reappear,  carrying  the  prevalent  ideas 


164       CHILDHOOD  IN  LITERATURE 

in  this  artist's  imagination.  Of  all  these 
the  child  is  the  most  central  and  emphatic, 
even  as  the  Songs  of  Innocence  is  the  most 
perfect  expression  of  Blake's  vision  of  life. 
It  may  be  said  that  in  his  mind  childhood 
was  largely  resolvable  into  infancy,  and  that 
when  he  looked  upon  a  babe,  he  saw  life  in 
its  purest  form,  and  that  most  suggestive  of 
the  divine,  as  in  the  exquisite  cradle  song, 
into  which  is  woven  the  weeping  of  the  child 
*Jesus  for  aU  the  human  race.  The  two 
short  antithetical  poems,  The  Little  Boy 
Lost  and  The  Little  Boy  Found,  reveal  the 
depths  which  Blake  penetrated  when  en- 
gaged in  his  solitary  voyage  of  discovery  to 
the  little  known  shores  of  childhood.  They 
have,  to  be  sure,  the  teasing  property  of  par- 
ables, and  it  would  be  hard  to  render  them 
into  the  unmistakable  language  of  the  un- 
derstanding ;  but  they  could  be  set  to  music, 
and  like  the  Duke  we  exclaim :  — 

"  That  strain  again  !  it  had  a  dying  fall." 

It  must  always  be  borne  in  mind  that 
Blake's  contribution  to  the  literature  of 
childhood  is  through  highly  idealized  forms. 
It  is  spiritual  or  angelic  childhood  which 
floats   before   his   eyes,    so   that   the    little 


IN  ENGLISH  LITERATURE  1G5 

creatures  who  dance  on  the  green,  the  little 
chimney  sweep,  the  children  filing  into  St. 
Paul's,  are  translated  by  his  visionary  power 
into  the  images  of  an  essential  childhood ; 
they  cease  to  be  individual  illustrations. 

We  are  told  that  in  the  fearful  days  of 
the  French  Revolution  there  was  an  erup- 
tion from  the  secret  places  of  Paris  of  a  vast 
horde  of  poor,  ignorant,  and  vicious  people, 
who  had  been  kept  out  of  sight  by  lords 
and  ladies.  One  may  accept  the  fact  as 
symbolical  of  that  emergence  into  the  light 
of  Christianity  of  poverty  and  degradation. 
The  poor  had  always  been  with  the  world, 
but  it  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  now  for 
the  first  time  did  they  begin  to  be  recognized 
as  part  and  parcel  of  humanity.  Words- 
worth's poems  set  the  seal  upon  this  recog- 
nition. Dickens's  novels  naturalized  the 
poor  in  literature,  and,  as  in  the  case  of 
Wordsworth,  poverty  and  childhood  went 
hand  in  hand. 

Dickens,  however,  though  he  made  a  dis- 
tinct addition  to  the  literature  of  childhood, 
rather  registered  a  presence  already  acknow- 
ledged than  acted  as  a  prophet  of  childhood. 
The     great    beneficent    and    humanitarian 


166       CHILDHOOD  IN  LITERATURE 

movement  of  the  century  was  well  under 
way,  and  had  already  found  abundant  ex- 
pression in  ragged  schools  and  Sunday- 
schools  and  in  education  generally,  when 
Dickens,  with  his  quick  reporter's  sight, 
seized  upon  salient  features  in  this  new 
exhibition  of  humanity.  He  was  quite  aside 
from  the  ordinary  organized  charities,  but 
he  was  moved  by  much  the  same  spirit  as 
that  which  was  briskly  at  work  among  the 
poor  and  the  young.  He  was  caught  by  the 
current,  and  his  own  personal  experience 
was  swift  to  give  special  direction  to  his 
imagination. 

Besides  innumerable  minor  references, 
there  are  certain  childish  figures  in  the  mul- 
titude of  the  creations  of  Dickens,  which  at 
once  rise  to  mind,  —  Paul  Dombey,  Little 
Nell,  Tiny  Tim,  Oliver  Twist,  David  Cop- 
perfield  in  his  earliest  days,  and  the  Mar- 
chioness. Dickens  found  out  very  soon  that 
the  power  to  bring  tears  into  the  eyes  of 
people  was  a  surer  road  to  success  than  even 
the  power  to  amuse.  When  he  was  drawing 
the  figures  of  children,  their  tenderness, 
their  weakness,  their  susceptibility,  presented 
themselves  as  the  material  in  which  he  could 
skillfully  work.     Then  he  used  the  method 


IN  ENGLISH  LITERATURE  167 

which  had  served  him  so  well  in  his  larger 
portraiture ;  he  seized  upon  the  significant 
feature  and  emphasized  it  until  it  became 
the  unmistakable  mark  of  the  person. 
Childhood  suggests  weakness,  and  weakness 
is  more  apparent  when  there  is  a  foil  of 
mental  prematurity ;  ^o  he  invented  the 
hydrocephalic  Paul  Dombey.  It  suggests 
tenderness ;  he  appealed  to  an  unhesitating 
sympathy  and  drew  for  us  Little  Nell,  inten- 
sifying her  nature  by  bringing  her  into  con- 
trast and  subtle  companionship  with  her 
imbecile  grandfather.  It  is  the  defect  of 
Dickens  that  by  such  characters  he  displayed 
his  skill  in  morbid  conceptions.  The  little 
old  man  in  Paul  Dombey  is  not  without  its 
prototyi^e  in  real  life,  but  Dickens  appears 
to  have  produced  it  as  a  type  of  tender 
childhood,  much  as  one  might  select  a  con- 
simiptive  for  an  illustration  of  extreme  re- 
finement. Tiny  Tim  is  a  farther  illustration 
of  this  unhealthy  love,  on  Dickens's  part,  of 
that  which  is  affecting  through  its  infirmity. 
That  art  is  truest  which  sees  children  at  play 
or  in  their  mother's  arms,  not  in  hospitals  or 
graveyards.  It  is  the  infirmity  of  humani- 
tarianism  and  of  Dickens,  its  great  expo- 
nent, that  it  regards  death  as  the  great  fact 


168       CHILDHOOD  IN  LITERATURE 

of  life ;  that  it  seeks  to  ward  it  off  as  the 
greatest  of  evils,  and  when  it  comes,  hastens 
to  cover  it  out  of  sight  with  flowers.  This 
conception  of  death  is  bound  up  with  an 
overweening  sense  of  the  importance  of 
these  years  of  life.  There  is  a  nobler  way, 
and  literature  and  art  are  slowly  confessing 
it,  as  they  devote  their  strength  to  that 
which  is  eternal  in  life,  not  to  that  which  is 
perishable.  Wordsworth's  maiden  in  We 
are  Seven,  with  her  simple,  unhesitating 
belief  in  the  continuity  of  life,  the  imperish- 
ability of  the  person,  holds  a  surer  place  in 
literature  than  Paul  Dombey,  who  makes  the 
ocean  with  its  tides  wait  for  him  to  die. 

It  is  only  fair  to  say,  however,  that  the 
caricature  to  be  found  in  Dickens  is  scarcely 
more  violent  an  extreme  to  some  minds  than 
is  the  idealism  to  be  found  in  Wordsworth, 
De  Quincey,  and  Blake  an  opposite  extreme 
to  minds  otherwise  constituted.  The  early 
life  of  Wordsworth,  passed,  as  he  tells  us, 
in  the  solitude  of  nature,  explains  much  of 
his  subsequent  attitude  toward  childhood 
and  youth.  It  is  out  of  such  an  experience 
that  Lucy  Gray  was  written.  In  like  man- 
ner the  early  life  of  Dickens  discloses  some- 
thing of  a  nature  which  reappears  afterward 


IN  ENGLISH  LITERATURE  169 

in  his  pictures  of  childhood.  A  wounded 
sensibility  is  unquestionably  the  pathetic 
history  of  many,  and  Dickens  has  contrib- 
uted to  the  natural  history  of  childhood  a 
distinct  account  of  this  feature. 

The  first  appearance  of  a  new  form  in  lit- 
erature produces  an  impression  which  can 
never  be  repeated.  However  freshly  readers 
in  this  decade  may  come  to  the  works  of 
Dickens,  it  is  impossible  that  they  should 
have  the  same  distinct  sensation  which  men 
and  women  had  who  caught  up  the  numbers 
of  The  Old  Curiosity  Shop  as  they  fell  from 
the  press  for  the  first  time.  There  can 
never  again  be  such  a  lamentation  over 
Little  Nell,  when  men  like  Jeffrey,  a  hard- 
ened old  critic,  made  no  concealment  of 
their  tears.  Yet  I  am  disposed  to  think 
that  this  does  not  give  a  complete  account 
of  the  phenomenon.  Just  as  Wordsworth's 
Alice  Fell  is  now  but  one  of  a  procession 
of  forlorn  maidens,  though  at  the  head  of 
it,  so  the  children  of  Dickens  are  merely 
somewhat  more  vivid  personages  in  a  mul- 
titude of  childish  creation.  The  child  is 
no  longer  a  novelty  either  in  poetry  or  in 
fiction.  It  is  an  accepted  character,  one  of 
the  dramatis  pcrsonoi  of  literature. 


170       CHILDHOOD  IN  LITERATURE 

For,  when  all  is  said  of  Dickens's  work, 
taken  only  as  the  product  of  a  mind  sin- 
gidarly  gifted  with  reporting  what  it  has 
seen,  there  remains  the  noticeable  fact  that 
scarcely  had  the  echoes  died  away  from  the 
voice  of  Wordsworth,  who  ushered  in  the 
literature  of  the  new  age,  when  a  great  man 
of  the  people  came  forward,  in  the  person 
of  Dickens,  and  found  it  the  most  natural 
thing  in  the  world  to  give  men  pictures  of 
child-life,  and  that  after  the  first  surprise  at- 
tendant upon  novelty  was  over,  writers  of  all 
sorts  were  busy  modeling  these  small  figures. 

The  child  once  introduced  into  literature, 
\X  the  significance  of  its  aj)pearance  thereafter 

is  not  so  much  in  individual  instances  as  in 
the  general  and  familiar  acceptance  of  the 
phenomenon.  At  least,  so  it  appears  from 
our  near  view.  It  is  not  impossible  that  later 
students  may  perceive  notes  in  our  literature 
of  more  meaning  than  we  now  surmise. 
They  may  understand  better  than  we  why 
Tennyson  should  have  made  a  babe  the 
heroine  of  The  Princess,  as  he  acknowledges 
to  Mr.  Dawson  that  he  did,  though  only 
one  or  two  critics  had  discovered  the  fact, 
and  why  Mr.  Swinburne,  who  is  supposed  to 


IN  ENGLISH  LITERATURE  171 

scoff  at  a  literature  virginihus  piierisque^ 
should  have  devoted  so  much  of  his  lyric 
energy  to  childhood.  The  stream  which  ran 
with  so  broken  a  course  down  to  Words- 
worth has  spread  now  into  a  broad,  full 
river.  Childhood  is  part  and  parcel  of  every 
poet's  material ;  children  play  in  and  out  of 
fiction,  and  readers  are  accustomed  to  meet- 
ing them  in  books,  and  to  finding  them 
often  as  finely  discriminated  by  the  novelist 
as  are  their  elders. 

Meanwhile,  from  the  time  when  childhood 
was  newly  discovered,  that  is  to  say,  roughly, 
in  the  closing  years  of  the  last  century,  there 
has  been  a  literature  in  process  of  formation 
which  has  for  its  audience  children  them- 
selves. I  called  attention  briefly,  at  the  be- 
ginning of  this  study,  to  the  interesting  fact 
that  there  was  a  correlation  in  time,  at  least, 
between  childhood  in  literature  and  a  litera- 
ture for  children.  A  nearer  study  of  the 
literature  of  this  century  shows  very  clearly 
that  while  the  great  constructive  artists  have 
been  making  room  for  the  figures  of  infancy 
and  youth,  and  even  consciously  explaining 
their  presence,  a  host  of  minor  writers,  with- 
out much  thought  of  art,  have  been  busy 
over  the  same  figures   for   other  purposes. 


172       CHILDHOOD  IN  LITERATURE 

Not  only  so,  but  in  several  instances  the 
great  artists  themselves  have  distinctly 
turned  aside  from  their  ordinary  audience 
and  appealed  directly  to  children. 

Where  was  the  child  in  English  literature 
before  Goldsmith  ?  and  where  before  Gold- 
smith's time  was  there  a  book  for  children  ? 
There  have  been,  it  is  true,  nursery  tales  in 
all  ages  :  ditties,  and  songs,  and  lullabies  ; 
unwritten  stories,  which  mothers  in  England 
told  when  they  themselves  could  have  read 
nothing ;  but  there  came  a  time  when  chil- 
dren were  distinctly  recognized  as  the  occa- 
sion of  formal  literature,  when  authors  and 
publishers  began  to  heed  a  new  public.  It 
was  impossible  that  there  shoidd  be  this  dis- 
covery of  childhood  without  a  corresponding 
effort  on  the  part  of  men  and  women  to  get 
at  it,  and  to  hold  direct  intercourse  with  it. 

By  a  natural  instinct,  writers  for  children 
began  at  once  to  write  about  children.  They 
were  moved  by  educational  rather  than  by 
artistic  impulses,  so  that  their  creations 
were  subordinate  to  the  lessons  which  they 
conveyed.  During  the  period  when  Words- 
worth, Lamb,  De  Quincey,  and  Blake  were 
idealizing  childhood,  and  seeing  in  it  artistic 
possibilities,   there    flourished   a  school   of 


JN  ENGLISH  LITERATURE         173 

writing  for  the  young  which  also  dealt  with 
childhood,  but  with  a  sturdy  realism.  This 
school  had  its  representatives  in  Mrs.  Bar- 
bauld,  Mr.  Day,  the  Aikens,  Maria  Edge- 
worth,  Ann  and  Jane  Taylor,  and  holds  a 
place  still  with  Evenings  at  Home,  The  Par- 
ent's Assistant,  Hymns  in  Prose  for  Chil- 
dren, Hymns  for  Infant  Minds,  Frank,  and 
Sandford  and  Merton.  The  characteristics 
of  this  literature  are  simple,  and  will  be  re- 
called by  many  who  dwell  with  an  affection- 
ate and  regretfid  regard  upon  books  which 
they  find  it  somewhat  difficidt  to  persuade 
their  children  to  read. 

These  books  were  didactic  ;  they  assumed 
in  the  main  the  air  of  wise  teachers ;  they 
were  sometimes  condescending ;  they  ap- 
pealed to  the  understanding  rather  than  to 
the  imagination  of  the  child,  and  they 
abounded  in  stores  of  useful  information 
upon  all  manner  of  subjects.  They  con- 
tained precursors  of  a  long  series  of  juvenile 
monitors,  and  the  grandfathers  who  knew 
Mr.  Barlow  had  children  who  knew  Mr. 
Holiday,  RoUo,  Jonas,  and  Mr.  George,  and 
grandchildren  who  may  be  suspected  of  an 
acquaintance  with  Mr.  Bodley  and  his  much 
traveled  and  very  inquisitive  family. 


174       CHILDHOOD  IN  LITERATURE 

\  Yet,  the  earlier  works,  thougli  now  some- 
wliat  antiquated,  were  not  infrequently  lively 
and  even  himiorous  in  their  portraiture  of 
children.  They  were  written  in  the  main 
out  of  a  sincere  interest  in  the  young,  and 
by  those  who  were  accustomed  to  watch  the 
unfolding  of  childish  nature.  If  they  re- 
flected a  somewhat  formal  relation  between 
the  old  and  the  young,  it  must  be  remem- 
bered that  the  actual  relation  was  a  formal 
one ;  that  the  young  had  not  yet  come  into 
familiar  and  genial  relation  with  the  old. 
Indeed,  the  books  themselves  were  some- 
what revolutionary  in  a  small  way.  Much 
that  seems  stiff  and  even  unnatural  to  us 
now  was  quite  easy  and  colloquial  to  their 
first  readers,  and  in  their  eagerness  to  lure 
children  into  ways  of  pleasant  instruction, 
the  authors  broke  down  something  of  the 
reserve  which  existed  between  fathers  and 
sons  in  the  English  life  which  they  por- 
trayed. Yet  we  cannot  help  being  struck 
by  the  contrast  between  the  sublimated 
philosophy  of  Wordsworth  and  the  pro- 
saic applications  of  the  Edgeworth  school. 
Heaven  lies  about  us  in  our  infancy  ?  Oh, 
yes,  a  heaven  that  is  to  be  looked  at  through 
a  spy-glass  and   explained   by  means  of   a 


IN  ENGLISH  LITERATURE         175 

home-made  orrery.  It  would  seem  as  if  the 
spirit  of  chiklhood  had  been  discerned  with 
all  its  inherent  capacity,  but  that  the  actual 
children  of  this  matter-of-fact  world  had  not 
yet  been  fairly  seen  by  the  light  of  this 
philosophy. 

The  literature  which  we  are  considering 
was  indeed  a  serious  attempt  at  holding 
intercourse  with  childish  minds.  It  had 
the  embarrassment  of  beginnings ;  there 
was  about  it  an  uncertain  groping  in  the 
dark  of  childhood,  and  it  was  desperately 
theory-ridden.  But  it  had  also  the  mark  of 
sincerity,  and  one  feels  in  reading  it  that  the 
writers  were  genuinely  indifferent  in  most 
cases  to  the  figure  they  might  be  cutting 
before  the  world;  they  were  bent  upon 
reaching  this  audience,  and  were  unobser- 
vant of  the  larger  world  behind.  In  most 
cases,  I  say.  I  suspect  that  Mrs.  Barbauld, 
with  her  solemn  dullness,  was  the  victim  of 
a  notion  that  she  was  producing  a  new  order 
of  literature,  and  in  this  she  was  encouraged 
by  a  circle  of  older  readers ;  the  children 
probably  stared  at  her  with  sufficient  calm- 
ness to  keep  her  ignorant  of  their  real 
thoughts. 

How  real  literature  looked  upon  the  dusty 


176        CHILDHOOD  IN  LITERATURE 

high-road  laid  out  across  the  fields  by  some 
of  these  writers  may  be  read  in  the  letters 
of  the  day.  Coleridge  jibed  at  that  "  ple- 
onasm of  nakedness,"  Mrs.  Bare-bald,  and 
Lamb  in  a  letter  to  Coleridge  speaks  his 
mind  with  refreshing  frankness :  "  Goody 
Two  Shoes,"  he  says,  •'  is  almost  out  of  print. 
Mrs.  Barbauld's  stuff  has  banished  all  the 
old  classics  of  the  nursery ;  and  the  shop- 
man at  Newberry's  hardly  deigned  to  reach 
them  off  an  old  exploded  corner  of  a  shelf 
when  Mary  asked  for  them.  Mrs.  B.'s  and 
Mrs.  Trimmer's  nonsense  lay  in  piles  about. 
Knowledge  insignificant  and  vapid  as  Mrs. 
B.'s  books  convey,  it  seems,  must  come  to 
a  child  in  the  shape  of  knowledge^  and  his 
empty  noddle  must  be  turned  with  conceit 
of  his  own  powers  when  he  has  learned  that 
a  horse  is  an  animal,  and  Billy  is  better 
than  a  horse,  and  such  like ;  instead  of  that 
beautiful  interest  in  wild  tales  which  made 
the  child  a  man,  while  all  the  time  he  sus- 
pected himself  to  be  no  bigger  than  a  child. 
Science  has  succeeded  to  poetry  no  less  in 
the  little  walks  of  children  than  with  men. 
Is  there  no  possibility  of  averting  this  sore 
evil?  Think  of  what  you  would  have  been 
now,  if,  instead  of  being  fed  with  tales  and 


IN  ENGLISH  LITERATURE  111 

old  wives'  fables  in  chiklhood,  you  had  been 
crammed  with  geography  and  natural  his- 
tory !  Hang  them !  I  mean  the  cursed 
reasoning  crew,  those  blights  and  blasts  of 
all  that  is  human  in  man  and  child."  Yet 
Lamb  and  his  sister  both  took  a  lively  inter- 
est in  genuine  books  for  the  young,  and 
their  own  contributions  have,  alas !  gone  the 
way,  for  the  most  part,  of  other  worn-out 
literature.  It  was  mainly  as  a  direct  educa- 
tive power  that  this  new  interest  in  children 
first  found  expression  ;  with  it,  however,  was 
mingled  a  more  artistic  purpose,  and  the 
two  streams  of  tendency  have  ever  since 
been  recognizable,  sometimes  separate,  of- 
tener  combined.  The  Lambs'  own  work 
was  illustrative  of  this  union  of  the  didactic 
and  the  artistic.  It  is  outside  the  scope 
of  this  study  to  dwell  at  length  upon  this 
phase  of  literature.  It  is  enough  to  point 
out  the  fact  that  there  is  a  distinct  class  of 
books  which  has  grown  up  quite  within  the 
memory  of  men  now  living.  It  is  involved 
with  industrial  and  commercial  interests  ;  it 
invites  the  attention  of  authoi's,  and  the 
infrequent  criticism  of  reviewers  ;  it  has  its 
own  subdivisions  like  the  larger  literatiu-e ; 
it  boasts  of  cyclopaedias  and  commentaries ; 


178       CHILDHOOD  IN  LITERATURE 

it  includes  histories,  travels,  poems,  works 
in  science,  theological  treatises.  It  is  a  dis- 
tinct principality  of  the  Kingdom  of  Letters. 
It  is  idle  to  complain  of  the  present  abun- 
dance of  children's  books,  as  if  somebody 
were  to  blame  for  it.  There  has  been  no 
conspiracy  of  publishers  and  authors.  It  is 
worse  than  folly  to  look  with  contempt  upon 
the  movement ;  the  faithful  student  will  seek 
rather  to  study  this  new  force,  and  if  possi- 
ble to  guide  it  into  right  channels. 

The  distinction  between  books  for  the 
young  and  books  for  the  old  is  a  somewhat 
arbitrary  one,  and  many  have  discovered  for 
themselves  and  their  children  that  instead 
of  one  poor  corner  of  literature  being  fenced 
off  for  the  lamb,  planted  with  tender  grass 
which  is  quickly  devoured,  and  with  many 
medicinal  but  disagreeable  herbs  which  are 
nibbled  at  when  the  grass  is  gone,  the  whole 
wide  pasture  land  is  their  native  home,  and 
the  grass  more  tender  where  fresh  streams 
flow  than  it  possibly  can  be  in  the  paddock, 
however  carefully  planted  and  watched. 
This  community  of  possession  is  more  recog- 
nizable in  the  higher  than  in  the  lower 
forms  of  literature.     It  is  still  more  clear  in 


IN  ENGLISH  ART  179 

pictorial  art.  Art  is  by  its  nature  more 
closely  representative  of  childhood  than  lit- 
erature can  be,  and  Gainsborough  and  Rey- 
nolds made  no  innovation  when  they  painted 
children,  although  the  latter,  by  his  evident 
partiality  for  these  subjects,  does  indicate  a 
susceptibility  to  the  new  knowledge  which 
was  coming  upon  the  world.  There  are 
other  influences  which  reinforce  the  artistic 
pleasure,  such  as  the  domestic  sense,  the 
pride  of  family,  the  ease  of  procuring  uncon- 
scious models.  No  one  can  visit  an  Eng-lish 
Gxliibition  of  paintings  without  being  struck 
by  the  extraordinary  number  of  subjects 
taken  from  childhood.  It  is  in  this  field 
that  Millais  has  won  famous  laurels,  and 
■when  the  great  body  of  book  illustrations 
is  scanned,  what  designs  have  half  the 
popularity  of  Doyle's  fairies  and  Miss 
Greenaway's  idyllic  children  ?  I  some- 
times wonder  why  this  should  be  the  case  in 
England,  when  in  America,  the  paradise  of 
children,  there  is  a  conspicuous  absence  of 
these  subjects  from  galleries. 


VII 

IN    FRENCH    AND    GERMAN    LITERATURE 


French  literature  before  the  Revolution 
was  more  barren  of  reference  to  childhood 
than  was  English  literature.  Especially  is 
this  true  of  the  eighteenth  century,  with  its 
superficial  disbelief  and  its  bitter  protest 
against  superstition,  under  which  term  was 
comprehended  the  supernatural  as  well  as 
the  preternatural.  There  were  exceptions, 
as  in  the  case  of  Fdnelon,  and  the  constitu- 
tional sentiment  of  the  French  was  easily 
moved  by  the  appeal  of  dependent  childhood. 
In  Rousseau  one  may  read  how  it  is  possible 
to  weep  over  children,  and  yet  leave  one's 
own  to  the  cold  mercy  of  a  foundling 
'  asylum.  It  is  in  Rousseau's  disciple,  how- 
ever, Bernardin  de  St.  Pierre,  that  we  find 
the  most  artistic  expression  of  pure  senti- 
mentalism,  and  the  story  of  Paul  and  Vir- 
ginia is  an  effort  at  representing  a  world 
where   childhood,  in   its  innocence,  is  con- 


IN  FRENCH  LITERATURE  181 

ceived  of  as  the  symbol  of  ideal  human  life. 
St.  Pierre  thought  of  childhood  and  nature 
as  possessed  of  strong  negative  virtues ;  they 
were  uncontaminated,  they  were  unsophis- 
ticated. To  escape  from  an  evil  world, 
he  fled  in  imagination  to  an  island  of  the 
tropics,  where  all  that  life  required  was 
readily  furnished  by  lavish  nature.  He 
makes  his  family  to  consist  chiefly  of  women 
and  children.  The  masculine  element  is 
avoided  as  something  disturbing,  and  except 
for  the  harmless  old  man  who  acts  as  chorus, 
it  is  discovered  first  as  a  rude,  barbaric,  and 
cruel  force  in  the  person  of  the  governor  of 
the  island,  who  has  no  faith  in  Madame  de 
la  Tour,  and  in  the  person  of  the  planter  at 
the  Black  River,  who  has  been  an  inhuman 
master  to  his  slave. 

The  childhood  of  Paul  and  Virginia  is 
made  to  have  a  pastoral,  idyllic  character. 
Their  sorrows  and  misfortunes  come  wholly 
from  evils  which  lie  beyond  their  control. 
St.  Pierre  brought  back  a  golden  age  by 
ignoring  the  existence  of  evil  in  the  heart  of 
man ;  he  conceived  it  possible  to  construct 
an  ideal  world  by  what  was  vaguely  ex- 
pressed in  the  words  "  a  return  to  nature." 
As  he  reflects  in  the  story  :  "  Their  theology 


182        CHILDHOOD  IN  LITERATURE 

consisted  in  sentiment  like  that  of  nature  ; 
and  their  morality  in  action  like  that  of  the 
gospel.  Those  families  had  no  particular 
days  devoted  to  pleasure,  and  others  to  sad- 
ness. Every  day  was  to  them  a  holiday,  and 
all  which  surrounded  them  one  holy  temple, 
where  they  forever  adored  an  Infinite  Intel- 
ligence, almighty  and  the  friend  of  human- 
kind. A  sentiment  of  confidence  in  his 
supreme  power  filled  their  minds  with  con- 
solation for  the  past,  with  fortitude  for 
the  present,  and  with  hope  for  the  future. 
Behold  how  these  women,  compelled  by  mis- 
fortune to  return  to  a  state  of  nature,  had 
unfolded  in  their  own  bosoms,  and  in  those 
of  their  children,  the  feelings  which  nature 
gives  us,  our  best  support  under  evil !  " 

However  we  may  discover  the  limitations 
of  the  sentimental  philosophy,  and  its  inad- 
equacy when  brought  face  to  face  with  evil 
in  life,  there  is  a  surface  agreement  with 
Christianity  in  this  instinctive  turning  to 
childhood  as  the  hope  of  the  world.  Yet 
the  difference  is  radical.  The  child,  in  the 
Christian  conception,  holds  the  promise  of 
things  to  come ;  in  the  conception  of  French 
sentiment  of  the  Rousseau  and  St.  Pierre 
type,  the  child  is  a  refuge  from  present  evil, 


IN  FRENCH  LITERATURE  183 

a  mournful  reminiscence  of  a  lost  Paradise. 
If  only  we  could  keep  it  a  child  !  is  the  cry 
of  this  school,  —  keep  it  from  knowing  this 
wicked,  unhappy  world  !  But  alas  !  there 
are  separations  and  shipwrecks.  Virginia 
is  washed  ashore  by  the  cruel  waves.  Paul, 
bereft  of  reason,  dies,  and  is  buried  in  the 
same  grave.  The  two,  growing  like  plants 
in  nature,  are  stricken  down  by  the  mysteri- 
ous, fateful  powers  of  nature. 

The  contrast  between  this  imreal  recourse 
to  nature  and  the  strong  yet  subtle  return 
which  characterizes  Wordsworth  and  his 
school  is  probably  more  apparent  to  the 
English  and  American  mind  than  to  the 
French.  Yet  a  reasonable  comparison  be- 
trays the  fatal  weakness  of  the  one  in  that 
it  leaves  out  of  view  whatever  in  nature  dis- 
turbs a  smooth,  summer-day  world.  When 
St.  Pierre  talks  of  a  return  to  nature,  he 
does  not  mean  the  jungle  and  the  pestiferous 
swamp ;  he  regards  these  as  left  behind  in 
Paris.  Yet  the  conclusion  of  his  story  is 
the  confession  wrung  from  faithful  art  that 
Nature  is  after  all  but  a  stepmother  to 
humanity. 

In  the  great  romantic  movement  which 
revolutionized  French  literature,  an  immense 


184       CHILDHOOD  IN  LITERATURE 

impetus  was  given  to  the  mind,  and  litera- 
ture thenceforth  reflected  a  wider  range  of 
thought  and  feeling.  In  few  respects  does 
this  appear  more  significantly  than  in  the 
treatment  of  childhood.  There  is  a  robust- 
ness about  the  sentiment  which  separates  it 
from  the  earlier  regard  of  such  writers  as  we 
have  named.  Lamartine,  who  certainly  was 
not  devoid  of  sentiment,  passes  by  his  own 
earliest  childhood  in  Les  Confidences  with 
indifference.  "  I  shall  not,"  he  says,  "  fol- 
low the  example  of  J.  J.  Rousseau  in  his 
Confessions.  I  shall  not  relate  to  you  the 
trifling  events  of  my  early  childhood.  Man 
only  dates  from  the  commencement  of  feeling 
and  thought ;  until  the  man  is  a  being,  he 
is  not  even  a  child.  .  .  .  Let  us  leave,  then, 
the  cradle  to  the  nurses,  and  our  first  smiles, 
our  first  tears,  and  our  first  lisping  accents 
to  the  ecstasies  of  our  mothers.  I  do  not 
wish  to  inflict  on  you  any  but  my  earliest 
recollections,  embellished  by  the  light  of 
reason."  He  gives,  accordingly,  two  scenes 
of  his  childhood  :  one  an  interior,  where  his 
father  reads  aloud  to  his  mother  from 
Tasso's  Jerusalem  Delivered ;  the  other  an 
outdoor  scene,  where  he  engages  in  the 
rural    sports   of    the   neighborhood.     Each 


IN  FRENCH  LITERATURE  185 

picture  is  delightfully  drawn,  with  minute 
detail,  with  poetic  touch,  with  affectionate 
recollection.  Encouraged,  apparently,  by 
the  warmth  which  this  memory  has  inspired, 
Lamartine  continues  to  dwell  upon  the 
images  of  his  childhood,  especially  as  it  has 
to  do  with  the  thought  of  his  mother.  He 
paints  the  simple  garden  attached  to  his 
father's  home,  and  resting  a  moment  re- 
flects :  — 

"  Yes,  that  is  indeed  all,  and  yet  that  is 
what  sufficed  during  so  many  years  for  the 
gratification,  for  the  reveries,  for  the  sweet 
leisures,  and  for  the  as  sweet  labors  of  a 
father,  a  mother,  and  eight  childi-en  !  Such 
is  what  still  suffices,  even  at  the  present  day, 
for  the  nourishment  of  these  recollections. 
Such  is  the  Eden  of  their  childhood,  where 
their  most  serene  thoughts  take  refuge  when 
they  wish  to  receive  a  little  of  that  dew  of 
the  morning  life,  a  little  of  that  beaming 
light  of  early  dawn,  which  shines  pure  and 
radiant  for  man  only  amid  the  scenes  of  his 
birth.  There  is  not  a  tree,  there  is  not  a 
carnation,  there  is  not  a  mossy  stone  of  this 
garden,  which  is  not  entwined  in  their  soul 
as  if  it  formed  part  of  it.  This  nook  of 
earth  seems  to  us  immense,  such  a  host  of 


186       CHILDHOOD  IN  LITERATURE 

objects  and  of  recollections  does  it  contain 
for  us  in  so  narrow  a  space." 

The  fullness  with  which  Lamartine  treats 
the  recollection  of  his  youth  partakes  of  the 
general  spirit  of  French  memoirs,  —  a  spirit, 
to  speak  roughly,  which  regards  persons 
rather  than  institutions,  —  but  indicates  also 
something  of  the  new  spirit  which  informed 
literature  when  it  elevated  childhood  into  a 
place  of  real  dignity.  There  are  passages, 
indeed,  which  have  a  special  significance  as 
intimating  a  consciousness  of  the  deeper  re- 
lations of  childhood.  Michelet,  for  instance, 
in  his  philosophy  of  the  unfolding  of 
woman's  life,  recognizes  the  characteristics 
of  maidenhood  as  anticipatory  of  maturity, 
and  does  it  with  so  serious  a  contemplation 
that  we  forget  to  smile  when  we  discover 
him  profoundly  observant  of  those  instincts 
of  maternity  which  are  shown  in  the  care  of 
a  child  for  its  doll. 

This  attitude  toward  the  child  is  observ- 
able in  the  masters  of  modern  French  liter- 
ature. However  far  they  may  be  removed 
from  any  mere  domestic  regard  of  the  sub- 
ject, they  apprehend  the  peculiar  sacredness 
attaching  to  children.  Alfred  de  Musset, 
for  example,  though  by  no  means  a  poet  of 


IN  FRENCH  LITERATURE  187 

the  family,  can  never  speak  of  children 
without  emotion.  Not  to  multiply  in- 
stances, it  is  enough  to  take  the  great  poet 
of  the  period.  Victor  Hugo  deserves,  it  has 
been  said,  to  be  called  the  poet  of  infancy, 
not  only  for  the  reason  that  he  has  written 
of  the  young  freely,  but  has  in  his  Les 
Enfants,  Livre  des  Meres,  written  for  them. 
It  is  to  be  observed  that  the  suggestion 
comes,  with  Hugo,  chiefly  from  the  children 
of  his  family ;  from  his  brother  Eugene, 
who  died  an  early  death  ;  from  his  daughter, 
whom  he  mourns  in  tender  verse  ;  and  from 
his  gi'andchildren.  One  feels  the  sincerity 
of  a  great  poet  when  he  draws  the  inspira- 
tion for  such  themes  from  his  own  familiar 
kind. 

It  may  be  said  in  general  of  the  contribu- 
tion made  to  this  literature  by  the  French 
that  it  partakes  of  those  qualities  of  light- 
ness and  grace  which  mark  the  greater  liter- 
atui*e  ;  that  the  image  of  childhood  is  a  joy- 
ous, innocent  one,  and  satisfies  the  eye  that 
looks  for  beauty  and  delicacy.  Sentiment 
predominates,  but  it  is  a  sentiment  that 
makes  little  draught  upon  thought.  There 
is  a  disposition  now  to  regard  children  as 
dolls  and  playthings,  the  amusement  of  the 


188       CHILDHOOD  IN  LITERATURE 

hour ;  now  to  make  them  the  object  of  an 
attitudinizing  sentiment,  which  is  practically 
wasted  unless  there  be  some  one  at  hand  to 
applaud  it. 

n 

When  we  pass  from  France  to  Germany 
we  are  aware  that,  however  we  may  use  the 
same  terms,  and  recognize  the  existence  of 
sentiment  as  a  strong  element  in  the  litera- 
ture of  both  countries,  there  is  a  radical  dif- 
ference in  tone.  It  is  not  merely  that  French 
(sentiment  is  gracefid  and  German  sentiment 
clumsy  :  the  grace  of  the  one  connects  itseK 
with  a  fine  art,  — we  feel  an  instinctive  good 
taste  in  its  expression  ;  in  the  other,  the  awk- 
wardness, the  obtrusiveness,  seem  to  be  the 
issue  of  an  excess  of  natural  and  homely  feel- 
ing. It  would  be  too  much  to  say  that  French 
sentiment  is  insincere  and  German  sentiment 
unpleasantly  sincere ;  that  the  one  is  assumed 
and  the  other  uncalculating,  —  we  cannot 
thus  dismiss  elementary  feeling  in  two  great 
peoples.  But  an  Englishman  or  American, 
to  whom,  in  his  reserve,  the  sentiment  of 
either  nation  is  apt  to  be  a  little  oppressive, 
is  very  likely  to  smile  at  the  French  and  feel 
uncomfortable  in  the  presence  of  the  Ger- 


72V  GERMAN  LITERATURE  189 

man ;  to  regard  the  French  feeling  as  a  tem- 
porary mood,  the  German  as  a  permanent 
state. 

Be  this  as  it  may,  it  is  true  that  the 
German  feeling  with  regard  to  childhood, 
as  it  finds  expression  in  life  and  literature, 
revolves  very  closely  about  the  child  in  its 
home,  not  the  child  as  a  charming  object  in 
nature.  Childhood,  in  German  literature,  is 
conceived  very  generally  in  its  purely  domes- 
tic relations,  and  is  so  positive  an  element 
as  to  have  attracted  the  attention  of  other 
nations,  and  even  to  have  given  rise  to  a 
petty  cult.  Coleridge,  writing  from  Ger- 
many in  1799,  reports  to  his  English  readers, 
as  something  strange  to  himself,  and  of  local 
significance  only,  the  custom  of  Christmas 
gifts  from  parents  to  children  and  from  chil- 
dren to  parents.  He  is  especially  struck  with 
the  custom  of  representing  these  presents  as 
coming  from  Jesus  Christ. 

The  whole  structure  of  Santa  Claus  and 
Kriss  Kringle,  the  Christ  Child  and  Pelzni- 
chel,  with  the  attendant  ceremonies  of  the 
Christmas  tree,  is  built  into  the  child  life  of 
Germany  and  the  Low  Countries  ;  and  it  is 
by  the  energj"^  of  this  childish  miracle  that  it 
has  passed  over  into  English,  and  especially 


190       CHILDHOOD  IN  LITERATURE 

into  American  life.  All  this  warmth  of  do- 
mestic feeling  is  by  no  means  a  modern  dis- 
covery. It  is  a  prime  characteristic  of  the 
Germanic  people,  and  one  strong  reason  for 
the  ascendency  of  Lutheranism  may  be  found 
in  the  singular  exposition  of  the  German 
character  which  Luther  presented.  He  was 
not  merely  a  man  of  the  people  ;  through  his 
life  and  writings  and  organizing  faculty  he 
impressed  himself  positively  on  the  German 
national  character,  not  turning  it  aside,  but 
deepening  the  channels  in  which  it  ran. 
Certain  it  is  that  the  luxuriance  of  his 
nature  was  almost  riotous  on  the  side  of 
family  life.  "  The  leader  of  the  age,"  says 
Canon  Mozley,  "  and  the  adviser  of  princes, 
affecting  no  station  and  courting  no  great 
men,  was  externally  one  of  the  common 
crowd,  and  the  plainest  of  it.  In  domestic 
life  the  same  heart  and  nature  appear.  There 
he  overflows  with  affection,  warmth,  tender- 
ness ;  with  all  the  amiable  banter  of  the  hus- 
band, and  all  the  sweet  arts  and  pretty  non- 
sense of  a  father  among  his  little  children. 
Whether  he  is  joking,  lecturing  his  '  rib 
Catharine,'  his  'gracious  dame  Catharine,' 
or  writing  a  description  of  fairyland  and 
horses   with    silver    saddles   to   his   '  vora- 


IN  GERMAN  LITERATURE  191 

clous,  bibacious,  loquacious,'  little  John ;  or 
whether  he  is  in  the  agony  of  grief  over 
the  death-bed  of  his  favorite  daughter,  Mag- 
dalene, we  see  the  same  exuberant,  tender 
character."  ^ 

In  this  sketch  of  Luther  we  may  read 
some  of  the  general  characteristics  of  the 
Germanic  life,  and  we  are  ready,  at  the  first 
suggestion,  to  assent  to  the  proposition  that 
the  German  people,  judged  by  the  appara- 
tus of  childhood,  books,  pictures,  toys,  and 
schools,  stands  before  other  nations.  The 
material  for  the  portraiture  of  childhood 
has  been  abundant ;  the  social  history,  the 
biographies,  give  constant  intimations  of  the 
fullness  with  which  family  life,  inclosing 
childhood,  has  been  dwelt  upon  in  the  mind. 
The  autobiographies  of  poets  and  novelists 
almost  invariably  give  great  attention  to  the 
period  of  childhood.  A  very  interesting 
illustration  of  this  may  be  found  in  the  life 
of  Richter,  who  stands  at  the  head  of  the 
great  Germans  in  his  portrayal  of  childhood. 

"  Men  who  have  a  firm  hold  on  nothing 
else,"  says  Richter  in  his  brief  autobiogra- 
phy, "  delight  in  deep,  far-reaching  recoUec- 

1  Essays,  Historical  and  Theological.  By  J.  E.  Moz- 
ley,  i.  430,  431. 


192        CHILDHOOD  IN  LITERATURE 

tion  of  their  days  of  childhood,  and  in  this 
billowy  existence  they  anchor  on  that,  far 
more  than  on  the  thought  of  later  difficul- 
ties. Perhaps  for  two  reasons:  that  in  this 
retrospection  they  press  nearer  to  the  gate 
of  life  guarded  by  spiritual  existences  ;  and 
secondly,  that  they  hope,  in  the  spiritual 
power  of  an  earlier  consciousness,  to  make 
themselves  independent  of  the  little,  con- 
temptible annoyances  that  surround  human- 
ity." He  then  recites  an  incident  from  his 
second  year,  and  continues :  "  This  little 
morning-star  of  earliest  recollection  stands 
yet  tolerably  clear  in  its  low  horizon,  but 
growing  paler  as  the  daylight  of  life  rises 
higher.  And  now  I  remember  only  this 
clearly,  that  in  earlier  life  I  remembered 
everything  clearly." 

How  clearly  will  be  apparent  to  the  reader 
who  follows  Richter  through  the  minute  and 
detailed  narrative  of  his  childish  life,  and  in 
his  writings  the  images  of  this  early  life  are 
constantly  reappearing  under  different  forms. 
Something  is  no  doubt  due  to  the  early  birth 
in  Richter  of  a  self-consciousness,  bred  in 
part  by  the  solitude  of  his  life.  It  may  be 
said  with  some  assurance  that  the  vividness 
of  early  recollection  has  much  to  do  with  de- 


IN  GERMAN  LITERATURE  193 

termining  the  poet  and  novelist  and  essayist 
in  his  choice  of  themes  bearing  directly 
upon  childhood.  The  childish  experience  of 
Wordsworth,  De  Quincey,  Dickens,  Lamar- 
tine,  and  Richter  is  clearly  traceable  in  the 
writings  of  these  men.  If  they  look  into 
their  own  hearts  and  write,  the  images 
which  they  bring  forth  are  so  abundantly 
of  childhood  that  they  cannot  avoid  making 
use  of  them,  especially  since  they  retain  rec- 
ollections which  demand  the  interpretation 
of  the  maturer  mind.  That  they  should  so 
freely  draw  from  this  storehouse  of  childish 
experience  reflects  also  the  temper  of  the 
age  for  which  they  write.  The  fullness 
with  which  the  themes  of  childhood  are 
treated  means  not  that  a  few  men  have 
suddenly  discovered  the  subject,  but  that 
all  are  sensitive  to  these  same  impressions. 
It  is  not,  however,  the  vividness  of  recol- 
lection alone,  but  the  early  birth  of  con- 
sciousness, which  will  determine  the  treat- 
ment of  the  subject.  If  one  remember  the 
facts  of  his  early  years  rather  than  how  he 
thought  and  felt  about  those  facts,  he  will 
be  less  inclined  to  dwell  upon  the  facts  af- 
terward, or  make  use  of  them  in  his  work. 
They  will  have  little  significance  to  him.     A 


194        CHILDHOOD  IN  LITERATURE 

distinction   in  this  view  is  to  be  observed 
~  between  Richter'and  Goethe.     The  autobi- 

ographies of  the  two  men  reveal  the  different 
impressions  made  upon  them  by  their  child- 
hood.    The  facts  which  Goethe  recalls  are 
^,  but  little  associated  with  contemporaneous 

"^  reflection  upon  the  facts,  and  they  serve  but 

a  trifling  purpose  in  Goethe's  art.  The 
facts  which  Richter  recalls  are  imbedded  in 
a  distinct  concejDtion  regarding  them,  and 
perform  a  very  positive  function  in  his  art. 

The  character  of  Mignon  may  be  dis- 
missed from  special  consideration,  for  it  is 
clear  that  Goethe  used  Mignon's  diminutive- 
ness  and  implied  youth  only  to  heighten 
the  effect  of  her  elfish  and  dwarfish  nature. 
The  most  considerable  reference  to  child- 
hood is  perhaps  in  the  Sorrows  of  Young 
Werther,  where  the  relations  between  Wer- 
ther  and  Charlotte  comjjrise  a  sketchy  group 
of  children  who  act  as  foils  or  accompani- 
ments to  the  pair.  Werther  discovers  Char- 
lotte, it  will  be  remembered,  cutting  slices 
of  bread  for  her  younger  brothers  and  sis- 
ters ;  it  is  by  this  means  that  Goethe  would 
give  a  charm  to  the  character,  presenting 
it  in  its  homely,  domestic  setting.  But  his 
purpose  is  also  to   intimate   the   exceeding 


IN  GERMAN  LITERATURE  195 

sensibility  of  Werther,  and  he  represents 
him  as  taking  a  most  affectionate  interest 
in  the  little  children  whom  he  sees  on  his 
walks.  I  suspect,  indeed,  that  Goethe  in 
this  has  distinctly  borrowed  from  the  Vicar 
of  Wakefield ;  at  any  rate,  the  comparison 
is  easily  suggested,  and  one  brings  away  the 
impression  of  Goldsmith's  genuine  feeling 
and  of  Goethe's  deliberate  assumption  of  a 
feeling  for  artistic  purposes.  Nevertheless, 
Goethe  makes  very  positive  use  of  child- 
hood in  this  novel,  not  only  through  the 
figures  of  children,  but  also  through  the  sen- 
timent of  childhood. 

"Nothing  on  this  earth,  my  dear  Wil- 
helm,"  says  Werther,  "affects  my  heart  so 
much  as  children.  When  I  consider  them ; 
when  I  mark  in  the  little  creatures  the  seeds 
of  all  those  virtues  and  qualities  which  they 
will  one  day  find  so  indispensable ;  when  I 
behold  in  the  obstinate  all  the  future  firm- 
ness and  constancy  of  a  noble  character,  in 
the  capricious  that  levity  and  gayety  of  tem- 
per which  will  carry  them  lightly  over  the 
dangers  and  troubles  of  life,  their  whole 
nature  simple  and  unpolluted,  then  I  call  to 
mind  the  golden  words  of  the  Great  Teacher 
of  mankind:  'Except  ye   become  as  little 


196       CHILDHOOD  IN  LITERATURE 

children.'  And  now,  my  friend,  these  chil- 
dren, who  are  our  equals,  whom  we  ought  to 
consider  as  our  models,  we  treat  as  subjects. 
They  are  allowed  no  will  of  their  own ! 
And  have  we  then  none  ourselves  ?  Whence 
comes  our  exclusive  right?  Is  it  because 
we  are  older  and  more  experienced  ?  Great 
God !  from  the  height  of  thy  heaven,  thou 
beholdest  great  children  and  little  children, 
and  no  others ;  and  thy  Son  has  long  since 
declared  which  afford  the  greatest  pleasure. 
But  they  believe  in  him,  and  hear  him  not, 
—  that  too  is  an  old  story ;  and  they  train 
their  children  after  their  own  image." 

We  must  regard  this  as  a  somewhat  dis- 
torted application  of  the  words  of  the  gospel, 
but  it  is  interesting  as  denoting  that  Goethe 
also,  who  stood  so  much  in  the  centre  of  illu- 
mination, had  perceived  the  revealing  light 
to  fall  upon  the  heads  of  young  children. 
It  is  not,  however,  so  much  by  his  direct  as 
by  his  indirect  influence  that  Goethe  is  con- 
nected with  our  subject.  If  Luther  was 
both  an  exponent  of  German  feeling  and  a 
determining  cause  of  its  direction,  Goethe 
occupies  a  similar  relation  as  an  expression 
of  German  intellectualism  and  a  stimulator 
of  German  thought.     A  hundred  years  after 


IN  GERMAN  LITERATURE  197 

his  birth,  when  measures  were  taking  to  cel- 
ebrate the  centenary  by  the  establishment  of 
some  educational  foundation  to  bear  his 
name,  the  enthusiastic  supporters  of  Froe- 
bel  sought  to  divert  public  interest  into  the 
channel  of  this  movement  for  the  cultivation 
of  childhood.'  Froebel's  philosophy  has  af- 
fected modern  educational  systems  even 
where  his  method  has  not  been  scrupulously 
followed.  Its  influence  upon  literature  and 
art  can  scarcely  be  traced,  except  so  far  as 
it  has  tended  to  give  direction  and  set  limits 
to  the  great  body  of  books  and  pictures, 
which,  made  for  children,  are  also  expository 
and  illustrative  of  the  life  of  children.  I 
mention  him  simply  as  an  additional  illus- 
tration of  the  grasp  which  the  whole  subject 
of  childhood  has  obtained  in  Germany ;  it 
has  made  itself  felt  in  religion  and  politics  ; 
so  revolutionary  was  Froebel's  philosophy 
held  to  be  that  his  schools  were  suppressed 
at  one  time  by  the  government  as  tending 
to  subvert  the  state.  This  was  not  stransre, 
since  Froebel's  own  view  as  to  the  education 
of  children  was  radical  and  comprehensive. 

A  child's  life  finds  its  chief  expression 
in  i)lay,  and  in  play  its  social  instincts  are 
developed.      Now    the    kindergarten    recog- 


198       CHILDHOOD  IN  LITERATURE 

nizes  the  fact  that  play  is  the  child's  busi- 
ness, not  his  recreation,  and  undertakes  to 
guide  and  form  the  child  through  play.  It 
converts  that  which  would  otherwise  be  aim- 
less or  willful  into  creative,  orderly,  and  gov- 
erned action.  Out  of  the  play  as  governed 
by  the  wise  kindergartner  grows  a  spirit  of 
courtesy,  self-control,  forbearance,  unselfish- 
ness. The  whole  force  of  the  education  is 
directed  toward  a  development  of  the  child 
which  never  forgets  that  he  is  a  person  in 
harmonious  relation  to  others.  Commimity, 
not  competition,  is  the  watchword  of  the 
school.  In  this  view  the  kindergarten  has 
its  basis  in  the  same  law  which  lies  at  the 
foundation  of  a  free  republic.  Obedience, 
as  taught  by  the  system  of  public  schools,  is 
an  obedience  to  rules ;  it  may  be  likened  to 
the  obedience  of  the  soldier,  —  a  noble  thing, 
but  not  the  highest  form  of  human  subjec- 
tion of  the  will.  Obedience  as  evolved  in 
the  true  kindergarten  is  a  conscious  obedi- 
ence to  law.  The  unity  of  life  in  the  school, 
with  entire  freedom  of  development  in  the 
individual,  is  the  aim  of  the  kindergarten. 

The  enthusiasm  which  made  itself  felt  in 
France  in  the  rise  of  the  romantic  school, 


IN  GERMAN  ART  199 

with  Its  expression  chiefly  through  poetry, 
the  drama,  and  fiction,  disclosed  its  power 
like^vise  in  Germany.  There,  however,  other 
channels  offered  a  course  for  the  new  cur- 
rent. The  rise  of  the  school  of  religious 
painters,  of  which  Overbeck  and  Cornelius 
were  eminent  examples,  was  a  distinct  is- 
sue of  the  movement  of  the  times.  It  was 
regarded  as  reactionary  by  some,  but  its  re- 
action was  rather  in  form  than  in  spirit. 
It  ran  counter  to  a  Philistinism  which  was 
complacent  and  indifferent  to  spiritual  life, 
and  it  sought  to  embody  its  ideas  in  forms 
which  not  only  Philistinism  but  humanism 
contemned,  yet  it  was  all  the  while  working 
in  the  interest  of  a  higher  freedom.  It  is 
noticeable,  therefore,  that  this  religious  art, 
in  its  choice  of  subjects,  not  only  resorted 
to  the  early  ecclesiological  type,  but  struck 
out  into  a  new  path,  choosing  themes  which 
imply  a  subjective  view  of  Christianity. 
Thus,  Overbeck's  picture  of  Christ  blessing 
little  children,  a  subject  which  is  a  favor- 
ite one  of  modem  religious  art,  is  a  distinct 
recognition  of  modern  sentiment.  Here  is 
the  relation  borne  by  the  Christ  to  little  chil- 
dren presented  by  a  religious  art,  which, 
however  much  it  might  seek  to  reinstate  the 


200       CHILDHOOD  IN  LITERATURE 

old  forms,  could  not  help  being  affected  by 
tlie  new  life  of  Christianity.  Overbeck  went 
to  the  early  Florentines  for  his  masters,  but 
he  did  not  find  this  subject  among  their 
works.  He  caught  it  from  the  new  read- 
ing of  the  old  gospel. 


VIII 

HANS   CHRISTIAN   ANDERSEN 

As  Overbeck  and  his  school  returned  to 
the  religious  art  which  preceded  the  Re- 
naissance, so  Thorwaldsen,  like  Canova  and 
lesser  men,  turned  back  to  Greek  art,  and 
was  working  contemporaneously  with  Over- 
beck  at  Rome  in  a  very  different  temper. 
To  him  the  central  figure  of  Christianity 
was  not  a  child  in  its  mother's  arms,  but  a 
strong,  thoughtful  man ;  for  childhood  he 
turned  to  the  sportive  conception  of  Amor, 
which  he  embodied  in  a  great  variety  of 
forms.  The  myth  appealed,  aside  from  the 
opportunity  which  it  offered  for  the  expres- 
sion of  sensuous  beauty,  to  his  northern  love 
of  fairyland.  His  countryman,  Andersen, 
tells  us  how,  when  they  were  all  seated  in 
the  dusk,  Thorwaldsen  would  come  from  his 
work  and  beg  for  a  fairy-tale. 

It  is  Andersen  himself  who  has  made 
the  most  unique  contribution  not  only  to  the 
literature  which  children  read,  but  to  that 


202       CHILDHOOD  IN  LITERATURE 

which  is  illustrative  of  childhood.  He  at- 
tained his  eminence  sheerly  by  the  exhibi- 
tion of  a  power  which  resulted  from  his  in- 
formation by  the  spirit  of  childhood.  He 
was  not  only  an  interpreter  of  childhood  ;  he 
was  the  first  child  who  made  a  real  contribu- 
tion to  literature.  The  work  by  which  he  is 
best  known  is  nothing  more  nor  less  than  an 
artistic  creation  of  precisely  the  order  which 
is  common  among  cliildren. 

It  is  customary  to  speak  of  his  best 
known  short  stories  as  fairy  tales ;  wonder- 
stories  is  in  some  respects  a  more  exact  de- 
scription, but  the  name  has  hardly  a  native 
sound.  Andersen  himself  classed  his  stories 
under  the  two  heads  of  historier  and  eventyr  ; 
the  historier  corresponds  well  enough  with 
its  English  mate,  being  the  history  of  human 
action,  or,  since  it  is  a  short  history,  the 
story ;  the  eventyr^  more  nearly  allied  per- 
haps to  the  German  abenteuer  than  to  the 
English  adventure^  presumes  an  element  of 
strangeness  causing  wonder,  while  it  does  not 
necessarily  demand  the  machinery  of  the  su- 
pernatural. When  we  speak  of  fairy  tales, 
we  have  before  our  minds  the  existence,  for 
artistic  purposes,  of  a  spiritual  world  peo- 
pled with  beings  that  exercise  themselves  in 


HANS  CHRISTIAN  ANDERSEN      203 

human  affairs,  and  are  endowed  in  the  main 
with  human  attributes,  though  possessed  of 
certain  ethereal  advantages,  and  generally 
under  orders  from  some  superior  power, 
often  dimly  understood  as  fate  ;  the  Italians, 
indeed,  call  the  iniryyata.  In  a  rough  way 
we  include  under  the  title  of  fairies  all  the 
terrible  and  grotesque  shapes  as  well,  and 
this  world  of  spiritual  beings  is  made  to  con- 
sist of  giants,  ogres,  brownies,  pixies,  nisses, 
gnomes,  elves,  and  whatever  other  creatures 
have  found  in  it  a  local  habitation  and  name. 
The  fairy  itself  is  generally  represented  as 
very  diminutive,  the  result,  apparently,  of 
an  attempted  compromise  between  the  im- 
agination and  the  senses,  by  which  the  exist- 
ence of  fairies  for  certain  purposes  is  con- 
ceded on  condition  they  shall  be  made  so 
small  that  the  senses  may  be  excused  from 
recognizing  them. 

The  belief  in  fairies  gave  rise  to  the  genu- 
ine fairy  tale,  which  is  now  an  acknowledged 
classic,  and  the  gradual  elimination  of  this 
belief  from  the  civilized  mind  has  been  at- 
tended with  some  awkwardness.  These 
creations  of  fancy  —  if  we  must  so  dismiss 
them  —  had  secured  a  somewhat  positive  rec- 
ognition in  literature  before  it  was  finally 


204        CHILDHOOD  IN  LITERATURE 

discovered  that  they  came  out  of  the  unseen 
and  therefoi-e  could  have  no  life.  Once  re- 
ceived into  literature  they  could  not  well  be 
ignored,  but  the  understanding,  which  ap- 
pears to  serve  as  special  jjolice  in  such  cases, 
now  has  orders  to  admit  no  new-comers 
unless  they  answer  to  one  of  three  classes : 
either  they  must  be  direct  descendants  of 
the  fairies  of  literature,  having  certain  marks 
about  them  to  indicate  their  parentage,  or 
they  must  be  teachers  of  morality  thus  dis- 
guised, or  they  may  be  mere  masqueraders  ; 
one  thing  is  certain,  they  must  spring  from 
no  belief  in  fairy  life,  but  be  one  and  all  re- 
ferred to  some  sufficient  cause,  —  a  dream, 
a  moral  lesson,  a  chemical  experiment.  But 
it  is  found  that  literature  has  its  own  sym- 
pathies, not  always  compassed  by  the  mere 
understanding,  and  the  consequence  is  that 
the  sham  fairies  in  the  sham  fairy  tales 
never  really  get  into  literature  at  all,  but 
disappear  in  limbo  ;  while  every  now  and 
then  a  genuine  fairy,  born  of  a  genuine, 
poetic  belief,  secures  a  place  in  spite  of  the 
vioilance  of  the  o-viard. 

Perhaps  nothing  has  done  more  to  vulgar- 
ize the  fairy  than  its  introduction  upon  the 
stage  ;  the  charm  of  the  fairy  tale  is  in  its 


HANS  CHRISTIAN  ANDERSEN       205 

divorce  from  human  experience  ;  the  charm 
of  the  stage  is  in  its  realization,  in  miniature, 
of  human  life.  If  the  frog  is  heard  to  speak, 
if  the  dog  is  turned  before  one's  eyes  into 
a  prince,  by  having  cold  water  dashed  over 
it,  the  charm  of  the  fairy  tale  has  fled,  and 
in  its  place  we  have  only  the  perplexing 
pleasure  of  legerdemain.  The  effect  of  pro- 
ducing these  scenes  upon  the  stage  is  to 
bring  them  one  step  nearer  to  sensuous  real- 
ity, and  one  step  further  from  imaginative 
reality  ;  and  since  the  real  life  of  fairy  is  in 
the  imagination,  a  wrong  is  committed  when 
it  is  dragged  from  its  shadowy  hiding-place 
and  made  to  turn  into  ashes  under  the  cal- 
cium light  of  the  understanding. 

By  a  tacit  agreement  fairy  tales  have  come 
to  be  consigned  to  the  nursery  ;  the  old  tools 
of  superstition  have  become  the  child's  toys, 
and  when  a  wi-iter  comes  forward,  now, 
bringing  new  fairy  tales,  it  is  almost  always 
with  an  apology,  not  for  trespassing  upon 
ground  already  occupied,  but  for  indulging 
in  what  is  no  longer  belief,  but  make-belief. 
"  My  story,"  he  is  apt  to  say,  "  is  not  true  ; 
we  none  of  us  believe  it,  and  I  shall  give 
you  good  evidence  before  I  am  done  that 
least  of  all  do  I  believe  it.     I  shall  probably 


206       CHILDHOOD  IN  LITERATURE 

explain  it  by  referring  it  to  a  strange  dream, 
or  shall  justify  it  by  tlie  excellent  lesson  it 
is  to  teach.  I  adopt  the  fairy  form  as 
suited  to  the  imagination  of  children ;  it  is 
a  childish  thing,  and  I  am  half  ashamed,  as 
a  grown  person,  to  be  found  engaged  in  such 
nonsense."  Out  of  this  way  of  regarding 
fairy  tales  has  come  that  peculiar  monstros- 
ity of  the  times,  the  scientific  fairy  tale, 
which  is  nothing  short  of  an  insult  to  a 
whole  race  of  innocent  beings.  It  may  be 
accepted  as  a  foregone  conclusion  that  with 
a  disbelief  in  fairies  the  genuine  fairy  tale 
has  died,  and  that  it  is  better  to  content  our- 
selves with  those  stories  which  sprang  from 
actual  belief,  telling  them  over  to  successive 
generations  of  children,  than  to  seek  to  ex- 
tend the  literature  by  any  ingenuity  of  mod- 
ern skepticism.  There  they  are,  the  fairy 
tales  without  authorship,  as  imperishable  as 
nursery  ditties  ;  scholarly  collections  of  them 
may  be  made,  but  they  will  have  their  true 
preservation,  not  as  specimens  in  a  museum 
of  literary  curiosities,  but  as  children's  toys. 
Like  the  sleeping  princess  in  the  wood,  the 
fairy  tale  may  be  hedged  about  with  bris- 
tling notes  and  thickets  of  commentaries, 
but  the  child  will  pass  straight  to  the  beauty, 


HANS  CHRISTIAN  ANDERSEN       207 

and   awaken  for  his   own   delight   the   old 
charmed  life. 

It  is  worth  noting,  then,  that  just  when 
historical  criticism,  under  the  impulse  of 
the  Grimms,  was  ordering  and  accounting 
for  these  fragile  creations,  —  a  sure  mark 
that  they  were  ceasing  to  exist  as  living  forms 
in  literature,  —  Hans  Christian  Andersen 
should  have  come  forward  as  master  in  a 
new  order  of  stories,  which  may  be  regarded 
as  the  true  literary  successor  to  the  old  order 
of  fairy  tales,  answering  the  demands  of  a 
spirit  which  rejects  the  pale  ghost  of  the 
scientific  or  moral  or  jocular  or  pedantic 
fairy  tale.  Andersen,  indeed,  has  invented 
fairy  tales  purely  such,  and  has  given  form 
and  enduring  substance  to  traditional  stories 
current  in  Scandinavia  ;  but  it  is  not  upon 
such  work  that  his  real  fame  rests,  and  it  is 
certain  that  while  he  will  be  mentioned  in 
the  biographical  dictionaries  as  the  writer 
of  novels,  poems,  romances,  dramas,  sketches 
of  travel,  and  an  autobiography,  he  will  be 
known  and  read  as  the  author  of  certain 
short  stories,  of  which  the  charm  at  first 
glance  seems  to  be  in  the  sudden  discovery 
of  life  and  humor  in  what  are  ordinarily 
regarded  as  inanimate  objects,  or  what  are 


208       CHILDHOOD  IN  LITERATURE 

somewliat  compassionately  called  dumb  ani- 
mals. When  we  have  read  and  studied  the 
stories  further,  and  perceived  their  ingenuity 
and  wit  and  humane  philosophy,  we  can 
after  all  give  no  better  account  of  their 
charm  than  just  this,  that  they  disclose  the 
possible  or  fancied  parallel  to  human  life 
carried  on  by  what  our  senses  tell  us  has 
no  life,  or  our  reason  assures  us  has  no  ra- 
tional power. 

The  life  which  Andersen  sets  before  us  is 
in  fact  a  dramatic  representation  upon  an 
imaginary  stage,  with  puppets  that  are  not 
pulled  by  strings,  but  have  their  own  mus- 
cular and  nervous  economy.  The  life  which 
he  displays  is  not  a  travesty  of  human  life, 
it  is  human  life  repeated  in  miniature  under 
conditions  which  give  a  charming  and  un- 
expected variety.  By  some  transmigration, 
souls  have  passed  into  tin-soldiers,  balls,' 
tops,  beetles,  money-pigs,  coins,  shoes,  leap- 
frogs, matches,  and  even  such  attenuated  in- 
dividualities as  darning-needles;  and  when, 
informing  these  apparently  dead  or  stupid 
bodies,  they  begin  to  make  manifestations, 
it  is  always  in  perfect  consistency  with  the 
ordinary  conditions  of  the  bodies  they  oc- 
cupy, though  the  several  objects  become  by 


HANS  CURISTIAN  ANDERSEN       209 

this  endowment  of  souls  suddenly  expanded 
in  their  capacity.  Perhaps  in  nothing  is 
Andersen's  delicacy  of  artistic  feeling  better 
shown  than  in  the  manner  in  which  he  deals 
with  liis  animated  creations  when  they  ai-e 
brought  into  direct  relations  with  human  be- 
ings. The  absurdity  which  the  bald  under- 
standing perceives  is  dexterously  suppressed 
by  a  reduction  of  all  the  factors  to  one  com- 
mon term.  For  example,  in  his  story  of  The 
Leap-Frog,  he  tells  how  a  flea,  a  grasshop- 
per and  a  leajj-f rog  once  wanted  to  see  which 
could  jump  highest,  and  invited  the  whole 
world  "  and  everybody  else  besides  who  chose 
to  come,"  to  see  the  performance.  The  king 
promised  to  give  his  daughter  to  the  one 
who  jumped  the  highest,  for  it  was  stale  fun 
when  there  was  no  prize  to  jump  for.  Tlie 
flea  and  the  grasshopper  came  forward  in 
turn  and  put  in  their  claims  ;  tlie  leap-frog 
also  appeared,  but  was  silent.  The  flea 
jumped  so  high  that  nobody  could  see  where 
he  went  to,  so  they  all  asserted  that  he  had 
not  jumped  at  all ;  the  grasshopper  jumped 
in  the  king's  face,  and  was  set  down  as  an 
ill-mannered  thing ;  the  leap-frog,  after  reflec- 
tion, leaped  into  the  lap  of  the  princess,  and 
thereupon  the  king  said,  "  There  is  nothing 


210        CHILDHOOD  IN  LITERATURE 

above  my  daughter  ;  therefore  to  bound  up 
to  her  is  the  highest  jump  that  can  be  made : 
but  for  this,  one  must  possess  understanding, 
and  the  leap-frog  has  shown  that  he  has  un- 
derstanding. He  is  brave  and  intellectual." 
"And  so,"  the  story  declares,  "he  won  the 
princess."  The  barren  absurdity  of  a  leap- 
frog marrying  a  princess  is  perhaps  the  first 
thing  that  strikes  the  impartial  reader  of 
this  abstract,  and  there  is  very  likely  some- 
thing offensive  to  him  in  the  notion  ;  but  in 
the  story  itself  this  absurdity  is  so  delight- 
fully veiled  by  the  succession  of  happy  turns 
in  the  characterization  of  the  three  jumpers, 
as  well  as  of  the  old  king,  the  house-dog,  and 
the  old  councilor  "  who  had  had  three  orders 
given  him  to  make  him  hold  his  tongue," 
that  the  final  impression  upon  the  mind  is 
that  of  a  harmonizing  of  all  the  characters, 
and  the  king,  princess,  and  councilor  can 
scarcely  be  distinguished  in  kind  from  the 
flea,  grasshopper,  leap-frog,  and  house-dog. 
After  that,  the  marriage  of  the  leap-frog  and 
princess  is  quite  a  matter  of  course. 

The  use  of  speaking  animals  in  story  was 
no  discovery  of  Andersen's,  and  yet  in  the 
distinction  between  his  wonder-story  and  the 
well-known  fable  lies  an  explanation  of  the 


HANS   CHRISTIAN  ANDERSEN       211 

charm  which  attaches  to  his  work.  The  end 
of  every  fable  is  hcec  fahiila  docet,  and  it 
was  for  this  palpable  end  that  the  fable  was 
created.  The  lion,  the  fox,  the  mouse,  the 
dog,  are  in  a  very  limited  way  true  to  the 
accepted  nature  of  the  animals  which  they 
represent,  and  their  intercourse  with  each 
other  is  governed  by  the  ordinary  rides  of 
animal  life,  but  the  actions  and  words  are 
distinctly  illustrative  of  some  morality.  The 
fable  is  an  animated  proverb.  The  animals 
are  made  to  act  and  speak  in  accordance 
with  some  intended  lesson,  and  have  this  for 
the  reason  of  their  being.  The  lesson  is 
first ;  the  characters,  created  afterward,  are, 
for  purposes  of  the  teacher,  disguised  as  ani- 
mals ;  very  little  of  the  animal  appears,  but 
very  much  of  the  lesson.  The  art  which 
invented  the  fable  was  a  modest  handmaid 
to  morality.  In  Andersen's  stories,  how- 
ever, the  spring  is  not  in  the  didactic  but  in 
the  imaginative.  He  sees  the  beetle  in  the 
imperial  stable  stretching  out  his  thin  legs 
to  be  shod  with  golden  shoes  like  the  em- 
peror's favorite  horse,  and  the  personality  of 
the  beetle  determines  the  movement  of  the 
story  throughout ;  egotism,  pride  at  being 
proud,  jealousy,  and  unbounded  self-conceit 


212       CHILDHOOD  IN  LITERATURE 

are  the  furniture  of  this  beetle's  soul,  and 
his  adventures  one  by  one  disclose  his  char- 
acter. Is  there  a  lesson  in  all  this?  Pre- 
cisely as  there  is  a  lesson  in  any  picture  of 
human  life  where  the  same  traits  are 
sketched.  The  beetle,  after  all  his  adven- 
tures, some  of  them  ignominious  but  none 
expelling  his  self-conceit,  finds  himseK  again 
in  the  emperor's  stable,  having  solved  the 
problem  why  the  emperor's  horse  had  golden 
shoes.  "  They  were  given  to  the  horse  on 
my  account,"  he  says,  and  adds,  "  the  world 
is  not  so  bad  after  all,  but  one  must  know 
how  to  take  things  as  they  come."  There 
is  in  this  and  other  of  Andersen's  stories  a 
singular  shrewdness,  as  of  a  very  keen  ob- 
server of  life,  singular  because  at  first  blush 
the  author  seems  to  be  a  sentimentalist. 
The  satires,  like  The  Emperor's  New 
Clothes  and  The  Swiftest  Runners,  mark 
this  characteristic  of  shrewd  observation 
very  cleverly.  Perhaps,  after  all,  we  are 
stating  most  simply  the  distinction  between 
his  story  and  the  fable  when  we  say  that 
humor  is  a  prominent  element  in  the  one 
and  absent  in  the  other;  and  to  say  that 
there  is  humor  is  to  say  that  there  is  real 
life. 


HANS  CHRISTIAN  ANDERSEN       213 

It  is  frequently  said  that  Andersen's 
stories  accomplish  their  purpose  of  amusing 
children  by  being  childish,  yet  it  is  impos- 
sible for  a  mature  person  to  read  them  with- 
out detecting  repeatedly  the  marks  of  expe- 
rience. There  is  a  subtle  undercurrent  of 
wisdom  that  has  nothing  to  do  with  child- 
ishness, and  the  child  who  is  entertained  re- 
turns to  the  same  story  afterward  to  find  a 
deeper  significance  than  it  was  possible  for 
him  to  apprehend  at  the  first  reading.  The 
forms  and  the  incident  are  in  consonance 
with  childish  experience,  but  the  spirit 
which  moves  through  the  story  comes  from 
a  mind  that  has  seen  and  felt  the  analogue 
of  the  story  in  some  broader  or  coarser 
form.  The  story  of  The  Ugly  Duckling  is 
an  inimitable  presentation  of  Andersen's 
own  tearful  and  finally  triumphant  life  ;  yet 
no  child  who  reads  the  story  has  its  sym- 
pathy for  a  moment  withdrawn  from  the 
duckling  and  transferred  to  a  human  being. 
Andersen's  nice  sense  of  artistic  limitations 
saves  him  from  making  the  older  thought 
obtrude  itself  upon  the  notice  of  children, 
and  his  power  of  placing  himself  at  the  same 
angle  of  vision  with  children  is  remarkably 
shown  in   one    instance,   where,    in    Little 


214       CHILDHOOD  IN  LITERATURE 

Klaus  and  Big  Klaus,  death  is  treated  as  a 
mere  incident  in  the  story,  a  surprise  but 
not  a  terror. 

The  naivete  which  is  so  conspicuous  an 
element  in  Andersen's  stories  was  an  ex- 
pression of  his  own  singularly  artless  nature. 
He  was  a  child  all  his  life  ;  his  was  a  con- 
dition of  almost  arrested  development.  He 
was  obedient  to  the  demands  of  his  spiritual 
nature,  and  these  led  him  into  a  fresh  field 
of  fancy  and  imagination.  What  separates 
him  and  gives  him  a  distinct  place  in  litera- 
ture is,  as  I  have  said,  that  he  was  the  first 
child  who  had  contributed  to  literature.  His 
very  autobiogTaphy  discloses  at  every  turn 
this  controlling  genius  of  childhood,  and  the 
testimony  of  his  friends  confirms  it. 

Now  that  Andersen  has  told  his  stories, 
it  seems  an  easy  thing  to  do,  and  we  have 
plenty  of  stories  written  for  children  that 
attempt  the  same  thing,  sometimes  also  with 
moderate  success;  for  Andersen's  discovery 
was  after  all  but  the  simple  application  to 
literature  of  a  faculty  which  has  always  been 
exercised.  The  likeness  that  things  inani- 
mate have  to  things  animate  is  constantly 
forced  upon  us  ;  it  remained  for  Andersen 
to  pursue  the  comparison  further,  and,  let- 


HANS  CHRISTIAN  ANDERSEN       215 

ting  types  loose  from  their  antitypes,  to  give 
them  independent  existence.  The  result  has 
been  a  surprise  in  literature  and  a  genuine 
addition  to  literary  forms.  It  is  possible  to 
foUow  in  his  steps,  now  that  he  has  shown 
us  the  way,  but  it  is  no  less  evident  that  the 
success  which  he  attained  was  due  not  merely 
to  his  happy  discovery  of  a  latent  property, 
but  to  the  nice  feeling  and  strict  obedience 
to  laws  of  art  with  which  he  made  use  of  his 
discovery.  Andersen's  genius  enabled  him 
to  see  the  soul  in  a  darning-needle,  and  he 
perceived  also  the  limitations  of  the  life  he 
was  to  portray,  so  that  while  he  was  often 
on  the  edge  of  absurdity  he  did  not  lose  his 
balance.  Especially  is  it  to  be  noted  that 
these  stories,  which  we  regard  as  giving  an 
opportunity  for  invention  when  the  series  of 
old-fashioned  fairy  tales  had  been  closed, 
show  clearly  the  coming  in  of  that  temper  in 
novel-writing  which  is  eager  to  describe 
things  as  they  are.  Within  the  narrow 
limits  of  his  miniature  story,  Andersen 
moves  us  by  the  same  impulse  as  the  mod- 
ern novelist  who  depends  for  his  material 
upon  what  he  has  actually  seen  and  heard, 
and  for  his  inspiration  upon  the  power  to 
penetrate  the   heart  of  things  ;  so  that  the 


216       CHILDHOOD  IN  LITERATURE 

old  fairy  tale  finds  its  successor  in  this  new 
realistic  wonder-story,  just  as  the  old  ro- 
mance gives  place  to  the  new  novel.  In  both, 
as  in  the  corresponding  development  of  poe- 
try and  painting,  is  found  a  deeper  sense  of 
life  and  a  finer  perception  of  the  intrinsic 
value  of  common  forms. 

This,  then,  may  be  taken  as  the  peculiar 
contribution  of  Andersen :  that  he,  appear- 
ing at  a  time  when  childhood  had  been  laid 
open  to  view  as  a  real  and  indestructible 
part  of  human  life,  was  the  interpreter  to 
the  world  of  that  creative  power  which  is 
significant  of  childhood.  The  child  spoke 
through  him,  and  disclosed  some  secrets  of 
life;  childhood  in  men  heard  the  speech, 
and  recognized  it  as  an  echo  of  their  own 
half -forgotten  voices.  The  literature  of  this 
kind  which  he  produced  has  become  a  dis- 
tinct and  new  form.  It  already  has  its  imi- 
tations, and  people  are  said  to  write  in  the 
vein  of  Andersen.  Such  work,  and  Ander- 
sen's in  particular,  presents  itself  to  us 
under  two  aspects:  as  literature  in  which 
conceptions  of  childhood  are  embodied,  and 
as  literature  which  feeds  and  stimulates  the 
imagination  of  children.  But  this  is  pre- 
cisely the  way  in  which  a  large  body  of  cur- 
rent literature  must  be  regarded. 


IX 


IN    AMERICAN    LITERARY    ART 

The  conditions  of  life  in  the  United 
States  have  been  most  favorable  to  the 
growth  of  a  special  literature  for  children, 
but,  with  one  or  two  notable  exceptions,  the 
literatiu'e  which  is  independent  of  special 
audiences  has  had  little  to  do  with  childhood 
as  a  subject,  and  art  has  been  singularly 
silent.  There  is  scarcely  anything  in  Irving, 
for  example,  which  touches  upon  child  life. 
A  sentence  now  and  then  in  Emerson  shows 
an  insight  of  youth,  as  when  he  sjaeaks  of  the 
unerring  instinct  with  which  a  boy  tells  off 
in  his  mind  the  characters  of  the  company 
in  a  room.  Bryant  has  touched  the  subject 
more  nearly,  but  chiefly  in  a  haK-fantastic 
way,  in  his  Little  People  of  the  Snow  and 
Sella.  Thoreau  could  hardly  be  expected 
to  concern  himself  with  the  young  of  the 
himian  race  when  he  had  nearer  neighbors 
and  their  offspring.  Lowell  has  answered 
the  appeal  which  the  death  of  children  makes 


218       CHILDHOOD  IN  LITERATURE 

to  the  heart,  but  aside  from  his  tender  ele- 
giac verses  has  scarcely  dwelt  on  childhood 
either  in  prose  or  verse.  Holmes,  with  his 
boyishness  of  temper,  has  caught  occasion- 
ally at  the  ebullition  of  youthful  spirits,  as 
in  the  humorous  figure  of  young  Benjamin 
Franklin  in  the  Autocrat,  and  in  some  of  his 
autobiographic  sketches.  His  School -Boy, 
also,  adds  another  to  those  charming  mem- 
ories of  youth  which  have  made  Cowper, 
Goldsmith,  and  Gray  known  to  readers 
who  else  would  scarcely  have  been  drawn 
to  them  ;  for  the  one  unfailing  poetic  theme 
which  finds  a  listener  who  has  passed  his 
youth  is  the  imaginative  rendering  of  that 
youth. 

Whittier,  though  his  crystalline  verse 
flows  through  the  memory  of  many  children, 
has  contributed  very  little  to  the  portrayal 
of  childhood.  His  portrait  of  the  Barefoot 
Boy  and  his  tender  recollection  In  School 
Days  are  the  only  poems  which  deal  directly 
with  the  subject,  and  neither  of  them  is 
wholly  objective.  They  are  a  mature  man's 
reflection  of  childhood.  Snow-Bound  rests 
upon  the  remembrance  of  boyish  days,  but 
it  deals  rather  with  the  circumstance  of  boy- 
hood than  with  the  boy's  thoughts  or  feel- 


IN  AMERICAN  LITERARY  ART     219 

ings.  Yet  the  poet  shows  unmistakably  his 
sense  of  childhood,  although  one  would  not 
be  far  wrong  who  understood  him  as  never 
separating  the  spirit  of  childhood  from  the 
human  life  at  any  stage.  His  editorial  work 
in  the  two  volumes,  Child-Life  in  Poetry  and 
Child-Life  in  Prose,  is  an  indication  of  his 
interest  in  the  subject,  and  he  was  quick  to 
catch  the  existence  of  the  sentiment  in  its 
association  with  another  poet,  whose  name 
is  more  directly  connected  with  childhood. 
In  his  verses,  The  Poet  and  the  Children, 
he  gave  expression  to  the  thought  which 
occurred  to  many  as  they  considered  how 
soon  Longfellow's  death  followed  upon  the 
spontaneous  celebration  of  his  birthday  by 
midtitudes  of  children. 

This  testimony  to  Longfellow  was  scarcely 
the  residt  of  what  he  had  written  either  for 
or  of  children.  It  was  rather  a  natural 
tribute  to  a  poet  who  had  made  himself  a 
household  word  in  American  homes.  Chil- 
dren are  brought  up  on  poetry  to  a  consid- 
erable extent;  they  are,  moreover,  under 
training  for  the  most  part  by  young  women, 
and  the  pure  sentiment  which  forms  the 
unfailing  element  of  Longfellow's  writings 
finds  in  such  teachers  the  readiest  response. 


220        CHILDHOOD  IN  LITERATUBE 

When  one  comes  to  consider  the  subjects  of 
Longfellow's  poetry,  one  finds  that  the  num- 
ber addressed  to  children,  or  finding  their 
motive  in  childhood,  is  not  large.  Those 
of  direct  address  are,  To  a  Child,  From 
my  Arm-Chair,  Weariness,  Children  ;  yet 
which  of  these  demands  or  would  receive  a 
response  from  children?  Only  one,  From 
my  Arm-Chair,  and  that  chiefly  by  the  cir- 
cumstance which  called  it  out,  and  on  which 
the  poet  relies  for  holding  the  direct  atten- 
tion of  children.  He  gets  far  away  from 
most  children  before  he  has  reached  the  end 
of  his  poem  To  a  Child,  and  in  the  other 
two  poems  we  hear  only  the  voice  of  a  man 
in  whom  the  presence  of  children  awakens 
thoughts  which  lie  too  deep  for  their  tears, 
though  not  for  his. 

Turning  aside  from  those  which  appeal  in 
form  to  children,  one  finds  several  which, 
like  those  last  named,  are  evoked  by  the 
sentiment  which  childhood  suggests.  Such 
are  The  Reaper  and  the  Flowers,  Resigna- 
tion, The  Children's  Hour,  and  A  Shadow, 
all  in  the  minor  key  except  The  Cliildren's 
Hour  ;  and  this  poem,  perfect  as  it  is  in  a 
father's  apprehension,  yields  only  a  subtle 
and  half  -  understood  fragrance  to  a  child. 


IN  AMERICAN  LITERARY  ART     221 

One  poem  partly  rests  on  a  man's  thought 
of  his  own  chihlhood,  My  Lost  Youth  ;  The 
Hansring:  of  the  Crane  contains  for  its  best 
lines  a  vignette  of  infancy ;  a  narrative 
poem,  The  Wreck  of  the  Hesperus,  has  for 
its  chief  figure  a  child ;  and  Hiawatha  is 
bright  with  a  sketch  of  Indian  boyhood. 
The  translations  show  two  or  three  which 
include  this  subject. 

While,  therefore,  Longfellow  is  repeatedly 
aware  of  the  presence  of  children,  it  is  not 
by  the  poems  which  spring  out  of  that  recog- 
nition that  he  especially  reaches  them.  In 
his  poem  From  my  Arm-Chair,  he  refers  to 
The  Village  Blacksmith  ;  that  has  a  single 
verse  in  which  children  figure,  but  the  whole 
poem  will  arrest  the  attention  of  children 
far  more  than  From  my  Arm-Chair,  and  it 
belong-s  to  them  more.  It  cannot  be  too 
often  repeated  that  books  and  poems  about 
children  are  not  necessarily  for  children. 
The  thoughts  which  the  man  has  of  the 
child  often  depend  wholly  upon  the  fact 
that  he  has  passed  beyond  childhood,  and 
looks  back  upon  it ;  it  is  impossible  for 
the  child  to  stand  by  his  side.  Thus  the 
poem  Weariness  contains  the  reflection  of  a 
man  who  anticipates  the  after  life  of  chil- 


222       CHILDHOOD  IN  LITERATURE 

dren ;  there  is  nothing  in  it  which  belongs 
to  the  reflection  of  chiklhood  itself.  Tenny- 
son's May  Queen,  which  has  found  its  way 
into  most  of  our  anthologies  for  the  young, 
is  a  notable  example  of  a  large  class  of 
verses  quite  unfit  for  such  a  place.  It  may 
be  said  in  general  that  sentiment,  when  made 
a  part  of  childhood,  is  very  sure  to  be  mor- 
bid and  unnatural.  We  have  a  sentiment 
■which  rises  at  the  sight  of  childhood,  but 
children  themselves  have  none  of  it ;  the 
more  refined  it  is,  the  more  unfit  it  is  to  go 
into  their  books. 

Here  is  a  collection  of  poetry  for  children, 
having  all  the  marks  of  a  sound  and  reputa- 
ble work.  As  I  turn  its  leaves,  I  come  upon 
a  long  ballad  of  The  Dying  Child,  Long-fel- 
low's The  Reaper  and  the  Flowers,  a  poem 
called  The  Little  Girl's  Lament,  in  which  a 
child  asks,  "  Is  heaven  a  long  way  off,  mo- 
ther?" and  for  two  or  three  pages  dwells 
upon  a  child's  pain  at  the  loss  of  her  father ; 
Tennyson's  May  Queen,  who  is  so  uncon- 
scionably long  a  time  dying  ;  Mrs.  Hemans's 
imitation  of  Mignon's  song  in  a  poem  called 
The  Better  Land;  and  a  poem  by  Dora 
Greenwell  which  I  must  regard  as  the  most 
admirable  example   of  what  a  poem  for  a 


IN  AMERICAN  LITERARY  ART     223 

child  should  not  be.  It  is  entitled  A  Story 
by  the  Fire,  and  begins,  — 

"  Children  love  to  hear  of  children ! 

I  ^vill  tell  of  a  little  child 
Who  dwelt  alone  witli  his  mother 

By  the  edge  of  a  forest  wild. 
One  summer  eve,  from  the  forest, 

Late,  late,  down  the  grassy  track 
The  child  came  back  with  lingering  step, 

And  looks  oft  turning  back. 

*' '  Oh,  mother !  '  he  said,  '  in  the  forest 

I  have  met  with  a  little  cliild  ; 
All  day  he  played  with  me,  —  all  day 

He  talked  with  me  and  smiled. 
At  last  he  left  me  alone,  but  then 

He  gave  me  this  rosebud  red  ; 
And  said  he  would  come  to  me  again 

When  all  its  leaves  were  spread.'  " 

Thereupon  the  child  declares  that  it  will  put 
the  rosebud  in  a  glass,  and  wait  eagerly  for 
the  friend  to  come.  So  the  night  goes  and 
the  morning  comes,  and  the  child  sleeps. 

"  The  mother  went  to  his  little  room. 

With  all  its  leaves  outspread 
She  saw  a  rose  in  fullest  bloom ; 

And,  in  the  little  bed, 
A  child  that  did  not  breathe  nor  stir,  — 

A  little,  happy  cliild. 
Who  had  met  his  little  friend  again, 

And  in  the  meeting  smiled." 


224        CHILDHOOD  IN  LITERATURE 

Here  is  a  fantastic  conception,  extremely 
puzzling  to  a  healthy-minded  child.  Im- 
agine the  natural  questions  of  a  simple, 
ingenuous  boy  or  girl  upon  hearing  this 
read.  Who  is  this  other  child  ?  Why  was 
he  coming  back  when  the  rose  was  blown  ? 
You  explain,  as  well  as  you  are  able,  that  it 
was  a  phantom  of  death ;  or,  if  that  seems 
too  pallid,  you  try  to  imagine  that  the  poet 
meant  Jesus  Christ  or  an  angel  by  this  other 
little  child  :  but,  in  whatever  way  you  ex- 
plain it,  you  are  obliged,  if  you  will  satisfy 
the  downright  little  inquirer,  to  say  plainly, 
This  little  boy  died,  and  you  begin  to  wish 
with  all  your  heart  that  the  poet  with  all 
her  ed  rhymes  had  added  dead.  Then  the 
puzzle  begins  over  again  to  connect  the 
blooming  rose  and  the  little  playmate  with 
death.  Do  you  say  that  you  will  leave  the 
delicate  suggestion  of  the  lines  to  find  its 
way  into  the  cliild's  mind,  and  be  the  inter- 
preter  of  the  poem?  This  is  what  one 
might  plead  in  Wordsworth's  We  are  Seven, 
for  instance.  The  comparison  suggested  by 
the  two  poems  is  a  partial  answer.  Words- 
worth's poem  is  a  plain,  objective  narrative, 
which  a  child  might  hear  and  enjoy  with 
scarcely  a  notion  of  what  was  implied  in  it, 


IN  AMEIilC^iN  LITERARY  ART     225 

returning  afterward  to  the  deep,  underlying 
sense.  This  poem  of  Dora  Greenwell's  has 
no  real  objective  character ;  the  incident  of 
the  walk  in  the  forest  is  of  the  most  shadowy- 
sort,  and  is  used  for  its  subtlety.  I  object 
to  subtlety  in  literature  for  children.  We 
have  a  right  to  demand  that  there  shall  be  a 
clear  outward  sense,  whatever  may  be  the 
deeper  meaning  to  older  people.  Hans  An- 
dersen's story  of  The  Ugly  Duckling  is  a 
consummate  example  of  a  narrative  which  is 
enjoyable  by  the  most  matter-of-fact  child, 
and  yet  recalls  to  the  older  reader  a  life's 
history. 

I  have  been  led  into  a  long  digression 
thi-ough  the  natural  correlation  which  exists 
between  childhood  in  literature  and  a  litera- 
ture for  children.  Let  me  get  back  to  my 
main  topic  by  a  similar  path.  The  one  au- 
thor in  America  whose  works  yield  the  most 
fruitful  examples  in  illustration  of  om-  sub- 
ject is  Hawthorne,  and  at  the  same  time  he 
is  the  most  masterly  of  all  our  authors  who 
have  aimed  at  writing  for  an  audience  of 
children.  Whatever  may  become  of  the 
great  mass  of  books  for  young  people  pub- 
lished in  America  during  the  past  fifty 
years,  —  and  most  of  it  is  already  crumbling 


226       CHILDHOOD  IN  LITERATURE 

in  memory,  —  it  requires  no  heroism  to  pre- 
dict an  immortality  of  fame  for  the  little 
books  which  Hawthorne  wrote  with  so  much 
good  nature  and  evident  pleasure,  Grandfa- 
ther's Chair  and  the  Wonder  Book,  with  its 
companion,  Tanglewood  Tales.  Mr.  Park- 
man  has  given  a  new  reading  in  the  minds 
of  many  people  to.  the  troubles  in  Acadia, 
but  he  has  not  disturbed  the  vitality  of 
Evangeline ;  one  may  add  footnote  after 
footnote  to  modify  or  correct  the  statements 
in  The  Courtship  of  Miles  Standish,  but  the 
poem  will  continue  to  be  accepted  as  a  pic- 
tm'e  of  Pilgrim  times.  So  the  researches  of 
antiquarians,  with  more  material  at  their 
command  than  Hawthorne  enjoyed,  may 
lead  them  to  different  conclusions  from  those 
which  he  reached  in  his  sketches  of  early 
New  England  history,  but  they  cannot  de- 
stroy that  charm  in  the  rendering  which 
makes  the  book  a  classic. 

More  notable  still  is  Hawthorne's  version 
of  Greek  myths.  Probably  he  had  no  fur- 
ther authority  for  the  stories  than  Lem- 
priere.  He  only  added  the  touch  of  his  own 
genius.  Only !  and  the  old  rods  blossomed 
with  a  new  variety  of  fruit  and  flower.  It 
is  easily  said  that  Hawthorne  Yankeeized 


IN  AMERICAN  LITERARY  ART     227 

the  stories,  that  he  used  the  Greek  stones 
for  constructing  a  Gothic  building,  but  this 
is  academic  criticism.  He  really  succeeded 
in  naturalizing  the  Greek  myths  in  Ameri- 
can soil,  and  all  the  labors  of  all  the  Coxes 
will  not  succeed  in  supplanting  them.  More- 
over, I  venture  to  think  that  Hawthorne's 
fame  is  more  firmly  fixed  by  means  of  the 
Wonder  Book.  The  presence  of  an  audi- 
ence of  children  had  a  singidar  power  over 
him.  I  do  not  care  for  the  embroidery  of 
actual  child  life  which  he  has  devised  for 
these  tales ;  it  is  scarcely  more  than  a 
fashion,  and  already  strikes  one  as  quaint 
and  out  of  date.  But  I  cannot  read  the 
tales  themselves  without  being  aware  that 
Hawthorne  was  breathing  one  air  when  he 
was  writing  them  and  another  when  he  was 
at  work  on  his  romances.  He  illustrates 
in  a  delicate  and  subtle  manner  the  line  of 
Juvenal  which  bids  the  old  remember  the 
respect  due  to  the  young.  Juvenal  uses 
it  to  shame  men  into  decorum ;  but  just  as 
any  sensitive  person  will  restrain  himself 
in  expression  before  children,  so  Hawthorne 
appears  to  have  restrained  his  thought  in 
their  silent  presence,  —  to  have  done  this, 
and   also  to  have  admitted  into  it  the  sun- 


228       CHILDHOOD  IN  LITERATURE 

shine  which  their  presence  brought.     With 
what  bright  and  joyous  playfulness  he  re- 
peats the  old  stories,  and  with  what  a  pater- 
nal air  he  makes  the  tales  yield  their  mor- 
sels  of  wisdom!     There  is   no  opening  of 
dark  passages,  no  peering  into  recesses,  but 
a  happy,  generous  spirit  reigns  throughout. 
All  this  could  have  been  predicated  from 
the  delightful  glimpses  which  we  now  have 
of   Hawthorne's   relations    to  his  children, 
glimpses  which  his  Note-Books,  indeed,  had 
already  afforded,  and  which  were  not  want- 
ino-   also   in    his  finished   work.     Nor   was 
this  interest  in  childhood  something  which 
sprang  up  after  he  had  children  of  his  own. 
In  that  lonely  period  of  his  young  manhood, 
when  he  held  converse  only  with  himself, 
his   Note-Books  attest  how  his  observation 
took   in   the    young  and   his   fancy  played 
about  them.     As  early  as  1836  he  makes  a 
note  :  "  To  picture  a  child's  (one  of  four  or 
five  years  old)  reminiscences  at  sunset  of  a 
long  summer's  day,  —  his  first  awakening, 
his  studies,  his  sports,  his  little  fits  of  pas- 
sion, perhaps  a  whipping,  etc."    Again,  how 
delicate  is  the  hint  conveyed  in  a  passage 
describing  one  of  his  solitary  walks  I     "  An- 
other time  I  came  suddenly  on  a  small  Cana- 


IN  AMERICAN  LITERARY  ART     229 

dian  boy,  who  was  in  a  hollow  place  among 
the  ruined  logs  of  an  old  causeway,  pick- 
ing raspberries,  —  lonely  among  bushes  and 
gorges,  far  up  the  wild  valley ;  and  the  lone- 
lier seemed  the  little  boy  for  the  bright  sun- 
shine, that  showed  no  one  else  in  a  wide 
space  of  view  except  him  and  me."  He  has 
elsewhere  a  quick  picture  of  a  boy  running 
at  full  speed;  a  wistful  look  at  a  sleeping 
infant,  which  somehow  touches  one  almost 
as  if  one  had  seen  a  sketch  for  a  Madonna  ; 
and  then  this  passage,  significant  of  the 
working  of  his  mind,  —  he  is  noting  a  Medi- 
terranean boy  from  Malaga  whom  he  saw  on 
the  wharf  :  "  I  must  remember  this  little 
boy,  and  perhaps  I  may  make  something 
more  beautiful  of  him  than  these  rough  and 
imperfect  touches  would  promise." 

The  relation  which  Hawthorne  held  to  his 
own  children,  as  illustrated  both  in  the  me- 
moirs of  him  and  in  his  Note-Books,  was  un- 
questionably a  sign  of  that  profomid  human- 
ity which  was  the  deep  spring  of  his  writ- 
ings. But  it  was  not,  as  some  seem  to  think, 
a  selfish  love  which  he  bore  for  them  ;  he 
could  show  to  them,  because  the  relation 
was  one  of  the  elemental  things  in  nature, 
a  fullness  of  feeling  which  found  expression 


230       CHILDHOOD  IN  LITERATURE 

otherwise  only  as  all  his  nature  found  out- 
let, —  in  spiritual  communion  with  mankind. 
How  deep  this  inherent  love  of  childhood 
lay  is  instanced  in  that  passage  in  Our  Old 
Home  which  one  reads  as  it  were  with  un- 
covered head.  It  is  in  the  chapter  entitled 
Some  Glimpses  of  English  Poverty,  and  re- 
lates how  one  of  the  party  visiting  an  alms- 
house —  Hawthorne  himself,  as  his  wife  has 
since  told  us  —  was  unexpectedly  and  most 
unwillingly  made  the  object  of  demonstra- 
tive attention  on  the  part  of  a  poor,  scrofu- 
lous, repulsive  waif  of  humanity.  Nothing 
that  he  had  done  had  attracted  the  child,  — 
only  what  he  was ;  and  so,  moved  by  com- 
passion, this  strange,  shy  man  took  the  child 
in  his  arms  and  kissed  it.  Let  any  one 
read  the  entire  passage,  note  the  mingled 
emotions  which  play  about  the  scene  like  a 
bit  of  iridescent  glass,  and  dare  to  speak  of 
Hawthorne  again  except  with  reverence. 

In  the  same  chapter  occurs  that  delicious 
little  description  of  children  playing  in  the 
street,  where  the  watchfulness  of  the  older 
children  over  the  younger  is  noted,  and  a 
small  brother,  who  is  hovering  about  his 
sister,  is  gravely  noted  as  "  working  a  kind 
of  miracle  to  transport  her  from  one  dust 


IN  AMERICAN  LITERARY  ART     231 

heap  to  another."  He  makes  the  reflection, 
"Beholding  such  works  of  love  and  duty, 
I  took  heart  again,  and  deemed  it  not  so 
impossible  after  all  for  these  neglected  chil- 
dren to  find  a  path  through  the  squalor  and 
evil  of  their  circumstances  up  to  the  gate  of 
heaven." 

One  of  the  earliest  and  most  ambitious 
of  his  short  tales,  The  Gentle  Boy,  gathers 
into  itself  the  whole  history  of  a  pathetic 
childhood,  and  there  seems  to  have  been  an 
intention  to  produce  in  Ilbrahim  precisely 
those  features  which  mark  the  childish  mar- 
tyr and  confessor.  Again,  among  the  Twice- 
Told  Tales  is  the  winning  sketch  of  Little 
Annie's  Ramble,  valuable  most  of  all  for  its 
unconscious  testimony  to  the  abiding  sense 
of  companionship  which  Hawthorne  found 
with  children.  In  Edward  Fane's  Rosebud, 
also,  is  a  passage  referring  to  the  death  of 
a  child,  which  is  the  only  approach  to  the 
morbid  in  connection  with  childhood  that 
I  recall  in  Hawthorne.  Little  Daffydown- 
dilly,  a  quaint  apologue,  has  by  virtue  of 
its  unquestionable  fitness  found  its  way  into 
all  reading-books  for  the  young. 

The  story,  however,  which  all  would  select 
as  most  expressive  of  Hawthorne's  sympathy 


232       CHILDHOOD  IN  LITERATURE 

with  childhood  is  The  Snow  Image.  In 
that  the  half-conventional  figures  which 
served  to  introduce  the  stories  in  the  Won- 
der Book  have  passed,  by  a  very  slight 
transformation,  into  quaint  impersonations. 
They  have  the  outward  likeness  of  boys  and 
girls,  but,  by  the  alchemy  which  Hawthorne 
used  chiefly  upon  men  and  women,  they  are 
made  to  have  ingenuous  and  artless  converse 
with  a  being  of  other  than  flesh  and  blood. 
It  is  the  charm  of  this  exquisite  tale  that 
the  children  create  the  object  in  which  they 
believe  so  implicitly.  Would  it  be  strain- 
ing a  point  too  far  to  say  that  as  Andersen 
managed,  whether  consciously  or  not,  to 
write  his  own  spiritual  biography  in  his  tale 
of  The  Ugly  Duckling,  so  Hawthorne  in  The 
Snow  Image  saw  himself  as  in  a  glass  ?  At 
any  rate,  we  can  ourselves  see  him  reflected 
in  those  childish  figures,  absorbed  in  the 
creation  out  of  the  cold  snow  of  a  sprite 
which  cannot  without  peril  come  too  near 
the  warm  life  of  the  common  world,  regarded 
with  half-pitpng  love  and  belief  by  one, 
good-naturedly  scorned  by  crasser  man. 

In  his  romances  children  play  no  unimpor- 
tant part.  It  is  Ned  Higgins's  cent  which 
does    the  mischief   with    Hepzibah,   in  The 


IN  AMERICAN  LITERARY  ART     233 

House  of  the  Seven  Gables,  transforming 
her  from  a  shrinking  gentlewoman  into  an 
ignoble  shopkeeper ;  and  thus  it  becomes 
only  right  and  proper  that  Ned  Higgins's 
portrait  should  be  drawn  at  full  length  with 
a  gravity  and  seriousness  which  wovdd  not 
be  wasted  on  a  grown  man  like  Dixey.  In 
The  Scarlet  Letter  one  might  almost  call 
Pearl  the  central  figure.  Certainly,  as  she 
flashes  in  and  out  of  the  sombre  shadows, 
she  contrives  to  touch  with  light  one  char- 
acter after  another,  revealing,  interpreting, 
compelling.  In  the  deeper  lines  one  reads 
how  this  child  concentrates  in  herself  the 
dread  consequences  of  sin.  The  Puritan, 
uttering  the  wrath  of  God  descending  from 
the  fathers  to  the  children,  never  spoke  in 
more  searching  accents  than  Hawthorne  in 
the  person  of  Pearl.  "  The  child,"  he  says, 
"  could  not  be  made  amenable  to  rules.  In 
giving  her  existence  a  great  law  had  been 
broken ;  and  the  result  was  a  being  whose 
elements  were  perhaps  beautiful  and  bril- 
liant, but  all  in  disorder."  When  one  stops 
to  think  of  The  Scarlet  Letter  without 
Pearl,  he  discovers  suddenly  how  vital  the 
child  is  to  the  story.  The  scene  in  the 
woods,   that   moving   passage   where  Pearl 


234        CHILDHOOD  IN  LITERATURE 

compels  her  mother  to  replace  the  scarlet  A, 
and  all  the  capricious  behavior  toward  the 
minister  show  how  much  value  Hawthorne 
placed  on  this  figure  in  his  drama;  and 
when  the  climax  is  reached,  and  Hester,  Ar- 
thur, and  Pearl  stand  together  on  the  scaf- 
fold, the  supreme  moment  may  fairly  be  said 
to  be  that  commemorated  in  the  words, 
"  Pearl  kissed  his  lips." 

It  is  noteworthy,  also,  that  when  Haw- 
thorne was  struggling  with  fate,  and,  with 
the  consciousness  of  death  stealing  over  him, 
made  ineffectual  efforts  to  embody  his  pro- 
foundest  thoughts  of  life  and  immortality, 
he  should  have  expended  his  chief  art  in 
loving  characterization  of  Pansie,  in  the 
Dolliver  Romance.  Whatever  might  have 
come  of  this  last  effort,  could  fate  have  been 
conquered,  I  for  one  am  profoundly  grate- 
ful that  the  two  figures  of  grandsire  and 
grandchild  stand  thus  fully  wrought,  to 
guard  the  gateway  of  Hawthorne's  passage 
out  of  life. 

The  advent  of  the  child  in  literature  at 
the  close  of  the  last  century  was  character- 
ized, as  I  have  pointed  out,  by  a  recognition 
of  personality  in  childhood  as  distinct  from 


IN  AMERICAN  LITERARY  ART     235 

relationship.  The  child  as  one  of  the  family 
had  always  been  recognized,  and  the  child 
also  in  its  more  elemental  nature  ;  it  was  the 
child  as  possessed  of  consciousness,  as  iso- 
lated, as  disclosing  a  nature  capable  of  inde- 
pendent action,  thought,  and  feeling,  that 
now  came  forward  into  the  world's  view, 
and  was  added  to  the  stock  of  the  world's 
literature,  philosophy,  and  art. 

"  The  real  virtues  of  one  age,"  says  Moz- 
ley,  "  become  the  spurious  ones  of  the  next," 
and  it  is  hardly  strange  that  the  abnormal 
development  of  this  treatment  of  childhood 
should  be  most  apparent  in  the  United 
States,  where  individualism  has  had  freest 
play.  The  discovery  appears  to  have  been 
made  here  that  the  child  is  not  merely  a  per- 
son, but  a  very  free  and  independent  person 
indeed.  The  sixteenth  amendment  to  the 
constitution  reads,  "  The  rights  and  caprices 
of  children  in  the  United  States  shall  not  be 
denied  or  abridged  on  account  of  age,  sex, 
or  formal  condition  of  tutelage,"  and  this 
amendment  has  been  recognized  in  litera- 
ture,  as  in  life,  while  waiting  its  legal  adop- 
tion. It  has  been  recognized  by  the  silence 
of  great  literature,  or  by  the  kind  of  mention 
which  it  has  there  received.     I  am  speaking 


236       CHILDHOOD  IN  LITERATURE 

of  the  literature  which  is  now  current  rather 
than  of  that  which  we  agree  to  regard  as  stan- 
dard American  literature  ;  yet  even  in  that  I 
think  our  study  shows  the  sign  of  what  was 
to  be.  The  only  picture  of  childhood  in  the 
poets  drawn  from  real  life  is  that  of  the 
country  boy,  while  all  the  other  references 
are  to  an  ideal  conception.  Hawthorne,  in 
his  isolation,  wrote  of  a  world  which  was 
reconstructed  out  of  elemental  material,  and 
his  insight  as  well  as  his  marvelous  sympathy 
with  childhood  precluded  him  from  using 
diseased  forms.  But  since  the  day  of  these 
men,  the  literature  which  is  most  represen- 
tative of  national  life  has  been  singularly 
devoid  of  reference  to  childhood.  One 
notable  exception  emphasizes  this  silence. 
Our  keenest  social  satirist  has  not  spared 
the  children.  They  are  found  in  company 
with  the  young  American  girl,  and  we  feel 
the  sting  of  the  lash  which  falls  upon  them. 
Again  the  silence  of  art  is  noticeable. 
There  was  so  little  art  contemporaneous  with 
our  greater  literature,  and  the  best  of  that 
was  so  closely  confined  to  landscape,  that  it 
is  all  the  more  observable  how  meagre  is  the 
show  in  our  picture  galleries  of  any  history 
of    childhood.     Now    and    then   a   portrait 


IN  AMERICAN  LITERARY  ART     237 

appears,  the  child  usually  of  the  artist's 
patron,  but  there  is  little  sign  that  artists 
seek  in  the  life  of  children  for  subjects  upon 
which  to  expend  thought  and  power.  They 
are  not  drawn  to  them,  apparently,  except 
when  they  appear  in  some  foreign  guise  as 
beggars,  where  the  picturesqueness  of  attire 
offers  the  chief  motive. 

In  illustration  of  this,  I  may  be  pardoned 
if  I  mention  my  own  experience  when  con- 
ducting, a  few  years  ago,  an  illustrated  mag- 
azine for  young  people.  I  did  my  best  to 
obtain  pictures  of  child  life  from  painters 
who  were  not  merely  professional  book-illus- 
trators, and  the  only  two  that  I  succeeded 
in  securing  were  one  by  Mr.  Lambdin,  and 
Mr.  La  Farge's  design  accompanying  Brown- 
ing's poem  of  The  Pied  Piper.  On  the 
lower  ground  of  illustrations  of  text,  it  was 
only  now  and  then  that  I  was  able  to  obtain 
any  simple,  xmaffected  design,  showing  an 
imderstanding  of  a  child's  figure  and  face. 
It  was  commonly  a  young  woman  who  was 
most  successful,  and  what  her  work  gained 
in  genuineness  it  was  apt  to  lose  in  correct- 
ness of  drawing. 

I  shall  be  told  that  matters  have  improved 
since  then,  and  shall  be  pouited  to  the  cur- 


238       CHILDHOOD  IN  LITERATURE 

rent  magazines  of  the  same  grade  as  the 
Riverside.  I  am  quite  willing  to  concede 
that  the  demand  for  work  of  this  kind  has 
had  the  effect  of  stimulating  designers,  but 
I  maintain  that  the  best  illustrations  in 
these  magazines  are  not  those  which  directly 
represent  children.  And  when  I  say  chil- 
dren, I  mean  those  in  whom  consciousness 
is  developed,  not  infants  and  toddlers,  who 
are  often  represented  with  as  much  clever- 
ness as  other  small  animals  and  pets.  It  is 
more  to  the  point  that,  while  the  introduc- 
tion of  processes  and  the  substitution  of 
photography  for  direct  drawing  on  the  wood 
have  greatly  enlarged  the  field  from  which 
wood-cuts  may  be  drawn,  there  is  little,  if 
any,  increase  in  the  number  of  strong  de- 
signs illustrative  of  childhood.  Formerly 
the  painter  was  deterred  from  contributing 
designs  by  the  slight  mechanical  difficulties 
of  drawing  on  boxwood.  Unless  he  was  in 
the  way  of  such  work,  he  disliked  laying  his 
brush  down  and  taking  up  the  pencil.  Now 
everything  is  done  for  him,  and  his  painting 
is  translated  by  the  engraver  without  the 
necessity  of  any  help  from  him.  Yet  how 
rarely,  with  the  magazines  at  hand  to  use 
his  paintings,  does  the  painter  voluntarily 
seek  such  subjects ! 


IN  AMERICAN  LITERARY  ART     239 

But  if  there  is  silence  or  scorn  in  great 
literature,  there  is  plenty  of  expression  in 
that  minor  literature  which  has  sprung  up, 
apparently,  in  the  interest  of  childhood.  It 
is  here,  in  the  books  for  young  people,  that 
one  may  discover  the  most  flagrant  illustra- 
tion of  that  spurious  individuality  in  child- 
hood which  I  have  maintained  to  be  conspic- 
uous in  our  country.  Any  one  who  has 
been  compelled  to  make  the  acquaintance  of 
this  literature  must  have  observed  how  very 
little  parents  and  guardians  figure  in  it,  and 
how  completely  children  are  separated  from 
their  elders.  The  most  popular  books  for 
the  young  are  those  which  represent  boys 
and  girls  as  seeking  their  fortune,  working 
out  their  own  schemes,  driving  railway 
trains  and  steamboats  it  may  be,  managing 
farms,  or  engaged  in  adventures  which  elicit 
all  their  uncommon  heroism.  The  same 
tendency  is  exhibited  in  less  exaggerated 
form :  children  in  the  schoolroom,  or  at 
play,  forming  clubs  amongst  themselves, 
having  their  o%\ai  views  upon  all  conceivable 
subjects,  torturing  the  English  language 
without  rebuke,  opening  correspondence 
with  newspapers  and  magazines,  starting 
newspapers    and   magazines   of    their  own, 


240        CHILDHOOD  IN  LITERATURE 

organizing,  setting  up  miniature  society,  — 
this  is  the  general  spectacle  to  be  observed 
in  books  for  young  people,  and  the  parent 
or  two,  now  and  then  visible,  is  as  much  in 
the  background  as  the  child  was  in  earlier 
literature. 

All  this  is  more  or  less  a  reflection  of 
actual  life,  and  as  such  has  an  unconscious 
value.  I  would  not  press  its  significance 
too  far,  but  I  think  it  points  to  a  serious  de- 
fect in  our  society  life.  This  very  ephem- 
eral literature  is  symptomatic  of  a  condi- 
tion of  things,  rather  than  causative.  It  has 
not  nearly  so  much  influence  on  young  life 
as  it  is  itself  the  natural  concomitant  of  a 
maladjustment  of  society,  and  the  correc- 
tive will  be  found  only  as  a  healthier  social 
condition  is  reached.  The  disintegration  of 
the  family,  through  a  feeble  sense  of  the 
sacredness  of  marriage,  is  an  evil  which  is 
not  to  be  remedied  by  any  specific  of  law  or 
literature,  but  so  long  as  it  goes  on  it  inevi- 
tably affects  literature. 

I  venture  to  make  two  modest  suggestions 
toward  the  solution  of  these  larger  problems 
into  the  discussion  of  which  our  subject  has 
led  me.  One  is  for  those  who  are  busy  with 
the  production  of  books  for  young  people. 


IN  AMERICAN  LITERARY  ART     241 

Consider  if  it  be  not  possible  to  report  the 
activity  and  comradery  of  the  young  in 
closer  and  more  generous  association  with 
the  life  of  their  elders.  The  spectacle  of  a 
healthy  family  life,  in  which  children  move 
freely  and  joyously,  is  not  so  rare  as  to  make 
models  hard  to  be  found,  and  one  woidd  do 
a  great  service  to  young  America  who  should 
bring  back  the  wise  mother  and  father  into 
juvenile  literature. 

Again,  next  to  a  purified  and  enriched 
literature  of  this  sort  is  a  thorough  subordi- 
nation of  it.  The  separation  of  a  class  of 
books  for  the  use  of  the  young  specifically  is 
not  now  to  be  avoided,  but  in  the  thought- 
lessness with  which  it  has  been  accepted  as 
the  only  literature  for  the  young  a  great 
wrong  has  been  inflicted.  The  lean  cattle 
have  devoured  the  fat.  I  have  great  faith 
in  the  power  of  noble  literature  when 
brought  into  simple  contact  with  the  child's 
mind,  always  assuming  that  it  is  the  litera- 
ture which  deals  with  elemental  feeling, 
thought,  and  action  which  is  so  presented. 
I  think  the  solution  of  the  problem  which 
vexes  us  will  be  found  not  so  much  in  the 
writing  of  good  books  for  children  as  in  the 
wise  choice  of  those  parts  of  the  world's  lit- 


242        CHILDHOOD  IN  LITERATURE 

erature  which  contain  an  appeal  to  the 
child's  nature  and  understanding.  It  is  not 
the  books  written  expressly  for  children  so 
much  as  it  is  the  books  written  out  of  minds 
which  have  not  lost  their  childhood  that  are 
to  form  the  body  of  literature  which  shall 
be  classic  for  the  young.  As  Mr.  Ruskin 
rightly  says,  "The  greatest  books  contain 
food  foi;  all  ages,  and  an  intelligent  and 
rightly  bred  youth  or  girl  ought  to  enjoy 
much  even  in  Plato  by  the  time  they  are  fif- 
teen or  sixteen." 

It  may  fairly  be  asked  how  we  shall  per- 
suade children  to  read  classic  literature.  It 
is  a  partial  answer  to  say,  Read  it  to  them 
yourself.  If  we  would  only  consider  the  sub- 
tle strengthening  of  ties  which  comes  from 
two  people  reading  the  same  book  together, 
breathing  at  once  its  breath, -and  each  giving 
the  other  unconsciously  his  interpretation  of 
it,  it  would  be  seen  how  in  this  simple  habit 
of  reading  aloud  lies  a  power  too  fine  for 
analysis,  yet  stronger  than  iron  in  welding 
souls  together.  To  my  thinking  there  is  no 
academy  on  earth  equal  to  that  foimd  in 
many  homes  of  a  mother  reading  to  her 
child. 

There  is,  however,  a  vast  organization  in- 


IN  AMERICAN  LITERARY  ART     243 

elusive  of  childhood  to  which  we  may  justly 
commit  the  task  of  familiarizing  children 
with  great  literature,  and  of  giving  them  a 
distaste  for  ignoble  books.  There  is  no 
other  time  of  life  than  that  embraced  by  the 
common-school  course  so  fit  for  introduction 
to  the  highest,  finest  literature  of  the  world. 
Our  schools  are  too  much  given  over  to  the 
acquisition  of  knowledge.  What  they  need 
is  to  recognize  the  power  which  lies  in  en- 
lightenment. In  the  susceptible  period  of 
youth  we  must  introduce  through  the  me- 
diiun  of  literature  the  light  which  will  give 
the  eye  the  precious  power  of  seeing.  But 
look  at  the  apparatus  now  in  use.  Look  at 
the  reading-books  which  are  given  to  chil- 
dren in  the  mechanical  system  of  grading. 
Is  this  feast  of  scraps  really  the  best  we  can 
offer  for  the  intellectual  and  spiritual  nour- 
ishment of  the  young  ?  What  do  these  books 
teach  the  child  of  reading?  They  supply 
him  with  the  power  to  read  print  at  sight, 
to  pronounce  accurately  the  several  words 
that  meet  the  eye,  and  to  know  the  time 
value  of  the  several  marks  of  punctuation ; 
but  they  no  more  make  readers  of  children 
than  an  accordeon  supplies  one  with  the 
power  to  appreciate  and  enjoy  a  sonata  of 
Beethoven. 


244       CHILDHOOD  IN  LITERATURE 

I  do  not  object  to  intelligent  drill,  but  I 
maintain  tliat  in  our  schools  it  bears  little 
or  no  relation  to  the  actual  use  of  the  power 
of  reading.  The  best  of  the  education  of 
children  is  not  their  ability  to  take  up  the 
daily  newspaper  or  the  monthly  magazine 
after  they  leave  school,  but  their  interest  in 
good  literature  and  their  power  to  read  it 
with  apprehension  if  not  comprehension. 
This  can  be  taught  in  school.  Not  only  so, 
it  ought  to  be  taught,  for  unless  the  child's 
mind  is  plainly  set  in  this  direction,  it  is 
very  unlikely  that  he  will  find  the  way  for 
himself.  I  look,  therefore,  with  the  great- 
est interest  upon  that  movement  in  our  pub- 
lic schools  which  tends  to  bring  the  great  lit- 
erature before  children. 

The  study  of  childhood  in  literature  has 
led  insensibly  to  observations  on  literature 
for  children.  The  two  subjects  are  not  far 
apart,  for  both  testify  to  the  same  fact,  that 
in  the  growth  of  human  life  there  has  been 
an  irregular  but  positive  advance,  and  a 
profounder  perception  of  the  rights  and  du- 
ties involved  in  personality. 

What  may  lie  in  the  future  I  will  not  ven- 
ture to  predict,  but  it  is  quite  safe  to  say 


IN  AMEBIC  AN  LITER  Alt  Y  ART     245 

that  the  form  in  which  childhood  is  presented 
will  still  depend  upon  the  sympathy  of  im- 
aginative writers  with  the  ideal  of  childhood, 
and  that  the  form  of  literature  for  children 
will  be  determined  by  the  gi'eater  or  less  care 
with  which  society  guards  the  sanctity  of 
childish  life. 


INDEX. 


Admetcs,  19,  20. 

MneOB,  31,  32. 

^neid,  childhood  in  the,  31, 
32. 

Agamemnon,  belief  in,  not  de- 
pendent on  the  spade,  0. 

Alice  Fell,  3,  147. 

Alkeslis,  a  scene  from  the,  19, 
20. 

Amelia,  Fielding's,  135. 

Amor,  the  myth  of,  30-38  ;   as 

treated  by  Raphael,  99  ;  in  tlie 

.  Elizabethan  lullabies,  116,  117  ; 

in  Shakespeare,  124  ;  in  Thor- 

waldsen's  art,  201. 

Anchises,  31. 

Ancient  Leaves,  cited,  31,  33. 

Andersen,  Hans  Cliristian,  the 
unique  contribution  of,  to  lit- 
erature, 201  ;  the  distinction 
between  his  stories  and  fairy 
tales,  202 ;  tlie  basis  of  his 
fame,  207  ;  tlie  life  of  his  cre- 
ations, 208  ;  their  relation  to 
human  beings,  209  ;  the  spring 
in  his  stories,  211  ;  his  satires, 
212  ;  the  deeper  experience  in 
them,  213  ;  his  essential  child- 
ishness, 214 ;  his  place  with 
novelists,  215 ;  his  interpreta- 
tion of  childhood,  216. 

Andromache,  the  parting  of,  with 
Hector,  11, 12  ;  the  scene  com- 
pared with  one  in  the  CEdipus 
Tyrannits,  16-18 ;  and  con- 
trasted with  Virgil,  31. 

Angels  of  children,  144,  145. 

Anna  the  prophetess,  47. 

Anthology,  the  Greek,  28-30. 

Antigone,  18. 

Apocryphal  Gospels,  the  legends 
of  the,  57-64. 

Art,  American,  as  it  relates  to 
children,  237,  238. 

Art,  modem,  the  foible  of,  38. 


Arthur,  in  King  John,  120. 

Ascanius,  31,  32. 

Askbert,  68,  69. 

jVstyauax,  11  ;  a  miniature  Hec- 
tor, 14. 

AtUmlic  Monthly,  The,  cited, 
34. 

Austin,  Alfred,  cited,  38. 

Ballads  relating  to  children,  106- 
108  ;  characteristics  of,  113. 

Barbauld,  Mrs.,  173  ;  her  relation 
to  the  literature  of  childhood, 
175  ;  Coleridge  and  Lamb  on, 
174. 

Bathsheba's  child,  42. 

Beatrice,  first  seen  by  Dante, 
77. 

Better  Land,  The,  222. 

Bible,  the  truth  of  the,  not  de- 
pendent on  external  witness, 
6 ;  the  university  to  many  in 
modern  times,  41,  42. 

Blake,  William,  163-165. 

Boccaccio,  79. 

Browning,  Robert,  as  an  inter- 
preter of  Greek  life,  27  ;  hia 
Pied  Piper,  237. 

Bryant,  William  Cullen,  217. 

Bunyan,  childhood  in,  129-133. 

Byzantine  tyx>e  of  the  Madonna, 
83,  84. 

Catullus,  33. 

Cliapman's  translation  of  Homer, 
quoted,  8,  9,  10, 16  ;  the  quality 
of  his  defects,  9,  10. 

Chaucer's  treatment  of  child- 
hood, 108-111  ;  compared  with 
the  Madonna  in  art,  113. 

Childhood,  discovered  at  the 
clo.se  of  the  last  century,  4  ; 
in  literature  as  related  to  lit- 
erature for  children,  4 ;  in 
Greek  life,   how  attested,  7 ; 


248 


INDEX 


indirect  reference  to  it  in 
Homer,  8-11 ;  the  direct  refer- 
ence, 11,  12  ;  in  the  Greek  tra- 
gedians, lG-21  ;  in  Plato,  22- 
26 ;  in  tlie  Greek  Anthology, 
29,  30  ;  in  Virgil,  31,  32 ;  con- 
ception of,  in  Roman  litera- 
ture, 32,  33 ;  in  Catullus,  33  ; 
in  epitaphs,  33,  34  ;  in  Lucre- 
tius, 34 ;  in  Juvenal,  35 ;  in 
classic  conception  of  the  su- 
pernatural, 34-36  ;  in  the  myth 
of  Amor,  36-38;  in  Old  Tes- 
tament literature,  42-46  ;  in 
New  Testament  literature,  48, 
49 ;  attitude  of  the  Saviour 
toward,  49 ;  as  a  sign  of  his- 
tory, 52  ;  in  the  legends  of  the 
Apocryphal  Gospels,  57-64  ;  of 
saints,  65-71  ;  under  the  form- 
ing power  of  Christianity,  73  ; 
in  Dante,  75-78 ;  in  the  rep- 
resentations of  the  Holy 
Family,  83-87 ;  in  the  art  of 
the  northern  peoples,  87-92 ; 
in  the  Madonnas  of  Raphael, 
92-98  ;  in  Raphael's  Amor,  98, 
99  ;  in  his  representations  of 
children  generally,  100,  101  ; 
in  the  art  of  Luca  della  Rob- 
bia,  101,  102 ;  its  elemental 
force  the  same  in  all  litera- 
tures, 105  ;  in  ballad  literature, 
106-108  ;  in  Chaucer,  108-111  ; 
its  character  in  early  English 
literature,  112,  113;  in  Spen- 
ser, 114,  115  ;  iu  the  lighter 
strains  of  Elizabethan  litera^ 
ture,  116, 117  ;  in  Shakespeare, 
117-126  ;  its  absence  in  Milton, 
127,  128 ;  how  regarded  in 
Puritanism,  128,  129  ;  in  Bun- 
yan,  129-133;  in  Pope,  133, 
134  ;  in  Fielding,  135  ;  in  Gray, 
135-137  ;  in  Goldsmith,  137- 
140 ;  in  Cowper,  140,  141  ;  in 
the  art  of  Reynolds  and  Gains- 
borough, 141,  142;  in  Words- 
worth, 144-157  ;  in  De  Quincey, 
158-162;  m  William  Blake, 
163-165;  in  Dickens,  165-170; 
in  Paul  and  Virginia,  181-183  ; 
in  Lamartine,  184-186 ;  in 
Michelet  de  Musset,  and  Vic- 
tor Hugo,  186,  187  ;  in  German 
aeutiment,  189 ;  illustrated  by 


Luther,  190,  191 ;  in  Richter, 
191,  192  ;  in  Goethe,  194-196 ; 
in  Froebel's  system,  197,  198 ; 
in  Overbeck's  art,  199,  200  ;  in 
Hans  Christian  Andersen,  201- 
216 ;  in  Emerson,  Bryant,  Low- 
ell, and  Holmes,  217,  218;  in 
Whittier,  218,  219;  in  Long- 
fellow, 219-222 ;  mistakenly 
presented  iu  sentimental  verse, 
222-225;  in  Hawthorne,  225- 
234. 

Child-Life  in  Poetry,  219. 

Child-Life  in  Prose,  219. 

Children,  books  for,  the  begin- 
ning of,  171,  172  ;  the  char- 
acteristics of  this  beginning, 
173  ;  their  revolutionary  char- 
acter, 174 ;  the  sincerity  of 
the  early  books,  175  ;  the  union 
of  the  didactic  and  artistic  in, 
177  ;  a  new  branch  of  litera- 
ture, 177,  178  ;  art  in  connec- 
tion with,  179. 

Children's  Hour,  The,  220. 

Child's  Last  Will,  The,  106. 

Christ,  the  childhood  of,  48  ;  his 
scenes  with  children,  48,  49 ; 
his  attitude  toward  childhood, 
49-52 ;  an  eflScient  cause  of 
the  imagination,  55 ;  legends 
of,  in  the  Apocryphal  Gospels, 
57-64  ;  his  symbolic  use  of  the 
child,  81  ;  his  infancy  the  sub- 
ject of  art,  82 ;  especially  in 
Netherlands,  89  ;  his  words  il- 
lustrative of  human  history, 
102. 

Christianity  and  French  senti- 
ment, 182. 

Christianity,  living  and  struc- 
tural, 53 ;  its  supersedure  of 
ancient  life,  54 ;  its  germinal 
truth,  55  ;  its  operative  imagi- 
nation, 56  ;  its  care  of  cliildren, 
especially  orphans,  73  ;  its  of- 
fice of  organization,  74  ;  its  in- 
fluence on  the  family,  75 ;  its 
insistence  on  death,  79 ;  in 
what  its  power  consists,  81 ; 
its  ideals,  82  ;  its  type  in  the 
Madonna,  83 ;  does  not  inter- 
fere with  elemental  facts,  105. 

Christmas  in  Germany,  189. 

Cimabue,  84. 

Coleridge,    Samuel    Taylor,    ob 


INDEX 


249 


Mrs.  Barbauld,  176  ;  on  Christ- 
mas ill  Germany,  189. 

Conius,  127. 

Confidences,  Les,  184. 

Coriolanus,  118. 

Cornelius,  88. 

Courtship  of  Miles  Siandish, 
The,  220. 

Cowper,  William,  140,  141. 

Cruel  Mother,  T/ie,  ballad  of,  106. 

Cupid  aud  Psyche,  36. 

Dnnae,  the,  of  Euripides,  20  ;  of 
Siinonides,  30. 

Dante,  cliildhood  in,  75-78. 

Day,  Tliomas,  author  of  Sanford 
and  Merton,  3. 

Death  of  children,  how  regarded 
by  Dickens,  167  ;  by  Words- 
worth, 1C8. 

Democracy  revealed  in  the 
French  Revolution,  143. 

De  Quincey,  Thomas,  reflections 
of,  on  his  childhood,  158-162. 

Deserted  Village,  The,  137. 

Dickens,  Charles,  his  naturali- 
zation of  the  poor  in  litera- 
ture, 165  ;  his  report  of  child- 
hood, 166 ;  the  children  created 
by,  1('>6-170  ;  compared  with 
Wordsworth,  168,  169. 

Distant  Prospect  of  Eton  College, 
On  a,  136. 

Dolliver  Romance,  The,  234. 

Doyle,  Richard,  179. 

Drama,  children  in,  20. 

Dying  Child,  The,  222. 

Edgewortli,  Maria,  and  Words- 
wortli,  174. 

Edward  Panels  Rosebud,  231. 

Elegy,  Gray's,  135,  136. 

Elijah,  the  propliet,42  ;  the  inci- 
dent of  tlie  boys  and,  43. 

Elislia,  43. 

Elizabetlian  era,  characteristics 
of,  113,  110. 

Emerson,  Ralph  Waldo,  217. 

English  race,  cliaracteristics  of 
the,  exemplified  in  literature, 
111-113. 

Eros,  the  myth  of,  36-38. 

Erotion,  34. 

Essay  on  Man,  The,  134. 

Euripides,  in  liis  view  of  chil- 
dren, 19 ;  examples  from,  20. 


Evangeline,  226. 
Excursion,  The,  151,  152. 

Fables,  Andersen's  stories  dis- 
tinguislied  from,  210,  211. 

Faery  Queen,  The,  114,  115. 

Fairy-tales,  Andersen's  stories 
distinguished  from,  202 ;  the 
origin  of,  203  ;  fading  out  from 
modern  literature,  204  ;  upon 
the  stage,  204,  205  ;  the  scien- 
tific fairy-tale,  206. 

F^nelon,  180. 

Fielding,  Henry,  in  his  Amelia, 
135. 

Fitzgerald,  Edward,  27. 

Flaxman,  John,  his  illustration 
of  Homer  in  outline,  12. 

French  literature  as  regards 
childhood,  180-188. 

French  Revolution,  the,  a  sign 
of  regeneration,  52 ;  a  day  of 
judgment,  142 ;  the  name  for 
an  epoch,  143;  synchronous 
with  a  revelation  of  childhood, 
144  ;  its  connection  with  Eng- 
lish literature,  162  ;  the  erup- 
tion of  poverty  in,  165. 

Froebel's  kindergarten  system, 
197,  198. 

From  my  Arm  Chair,  220,  221. 

Gainsborough,  Thomas,  141. 

Gascoigne,  George,  117. 

Gentle  Boy,  The,  231. 

Germanic  peoples,  home-culti- 
vating, 88. 

German  literature  and  childhood, 
188-198. 

Giotto,  84. 

Goethe,  compared  with  Richter 
as  regards  memory  of  child- 
hood, 194;  his  Mignon,  194; 
his  indebtedness  to  the  Vicar 
of  Wakefield,  195;  hisSorrows 
of  Wert  her,  195 ;  compared 
with  Luther,  196. 

Goldsmith,  Oliver,  avant-courier 
of  Wordsworth,  3  ;  the  precur- 
sor of  the  poets  of  childhood, 

137  ;  his  position  in  literature, 

138  ;  his   Vicar  of  Wakefield, 
138-140. 

Goody  Two  Shoes,  3. 
Grandfather's  Chair,  226. 
Gray,  Thomas,  135-137. 


250 


INDEX 


Gray,  Thomas,  borrowing  possi- 
bly from  Martial,  34. 

Greece,  life  in  ancient,  how  illus- 
trated, 7  ;  silence  of  the  child 
in  the  art  of,  21  ;  our  relation 
to,  21  ;  modern  interpretations 
of,  27,  28 ;  compared  with 
Rome,  31 ;  compared  with  Ju- 
daea, 42. 

Greenaway,  Kate,  179. 

Greene,  Robert,  117. 

Greenwell,  Dora,  her  poem,  A 
Story  by  the  Fire,  an  example 
of  permcio\i8  literature,  222- 
225. 

Grimm,  the  brothers,  207. 

Hannah,  the  song  of,  44,  47. 

Hawthorne,  Nathaniel,  the  most 
abundant  of  American  authors 
in  his  treatment  of  childhood, 
225  ;  his  use  of  New  England 
history,  226 ;  his  rendering  of 
Greek  myths,  226,  227  ;  his  ob- 
servation of  childhood,  228, 
229 ;  his  relation  to  children, 
229,  230 ;  his  apologue  in  The 
Snoiu-Image,  232 ;  children  in 
his  romances,  232,  233;  his 
Pearl  in  The  Scarlet  Letter, 
233,  234;  his  Pansie  in  The 
Dolliver  Romance,  234. 

Hebrew  life,  in  its  influence  on 
modern  thought,  39-41 ;  the 
child  in,  46,  47 ;  its  transfor- 
mation into  Christianity,  47, 
48,  53. 

Hector  parting  with  Andro- 
mache, 11,  12  ;  face  to  face 
with  Ajax,  14 ;  comforts  his 
wife,  16,  17. 

Hemans,  Felicia,  222. 

Hen  and  chickens,  in  the  Bible 
and  Shakespeare,  122. 

Herakles,  36. 

Hermes,  36. 

Niaicatha,221. 

Hilarion,  67. 

Holmes,  Oliver  Wendell,  218. 

Holy  Family,  the  child  in  the, 
83  ;  character  of  the  early  type 
of  the,  83 ;  emblematic  of  do- 
mesticity, 86,  87. 

Homer,  authenticity  of  the  le- 
gend of,  supposed  to  be  proved 
by  Schliemann,  6 ;    a   better 


preserver  of  Greek  womanhood 
than  antiquaries,  7  ;  the  value 
of  his  similes,  7,  8  ;  passages  in 
illustration  of  his  indirect  ref- 
erence to  cliildhood,  8-11  ;  the 
elemental  character  of,  12 ;  the 
peril  of  commenting  on,  13 ; 
the  nurse  in,  14 ;  his  view  of 
childhood,  15 ;  compared  with 
that  of  the  tragedians,  16-18 ; 
with  that  of  Virgil,  31,  32. 

Hosea,  quoted,  44. 

Hoiise  of  the  Seven  Gables,  The, 
232,  233. 

Hubert,  120. 

Hugh  of  Lincohi,  108. 

Hugo,  Victor,  187. 

Hind,  the  swarm  of  bees  in  the, 
8  ;  the  passage  describing  the 
brushing  away  of  a  fly,  9 ;  the 
ass  belabored  by  a  pack  of 
boys,  9  ;  Achilles  chiding  Pa- 
troclos,  10 ;  Hector  parting 
with  Andromache,  11, 12  ;  sta^ 
uesque  scenes  in,  12. 

Imaginary     Conversations, 
quoted,  153. 

Imagination,  the,  abnormal  ac- 
tivity of,  in  early  Christianity, 
54 ;  the  direction  of  its  new 
force,  56,  57. 

Intimations  oj  Immortality,  154, 
156,  157. 

Irving,  Washington,  217. 

Isaiah,  quoted,  45. 

Ishmael,  42. 

Ismene,  18. 

Jacob,  the  two  wives  of,  44. 

James,  Henry,  alluded  to,  236. 

Jeffrey,  Francis,  169. 

Jerusalem,  the  entry  into,  49, 52. 

John  the  Baptist,  81. 

Jonson,  Ben,  37. 

Jonson,   Ben,  Venus''  Runaway 

of,  116. 
Jowett,     Benjamin,    translation 

by,  22-26. 
Juvenal,  35,  227. 

Kenwulf  of  Wessex,  68. 

Kindergarten,  the,  fortified  by 
reference  to  Plato,  24  ;  in  con- 
nection with  politics,  197, 
198. 


INDEX 


251 


King  John,  119, 120. 
Kriss  Kringle,  189. 

Lafarge,  John,  237. 

i'  Allegro,  127. 

Lamartine,  Alphonse  de,  184- 
18C. 

Laiiib,  Charles,  on  Mrs.  Bar- 
b.iuld's  work,  176, 177  ;  his  and 
his  sister's  books,  177. 

Lambdin,  George  C,  237. 

Lamhin,  the  ballad  of,  107,  108. 

Landor,  Walter  Savage,  remark 
of,  on  children,  153. 

Laokoon,  21. 

Laivs,  Plato's,  cited,  22,  24,  25. 

Legends  of  the  Madonna,  89. 

Leslie,  C.  R.,  on  Raphael's  chil- 
dren, 100. 

Lindsay,  Lord,  quoted,  88. 

Lines  on  the  Receipt  of  my  Mo- 
ther's Picture,  141,  142. 

Literature  for  children  in  the 
United  States,  235,  23G  ;  some 
of  its  tendencies,  239,  240,; 
measures  for  its  enrichment, 
240. 

Literature,  the  source  of  know- 
ledge, 7  ;  of  Christendom,  the 
exposition  of  tlie  conception  of 
the  Christ,  50 ;  inaction  in,  54  ; 
fallacy  iu  the  study  of  the  de- 
velopment of,  104  ;  its  bounds 
enlarged,  1G3. 

Little  Annie's  Ramble,  231. 

Little  Daffydou-ndillii,  231. 

Little  Girl's  Lament,  The,  222. 

lAttle  People  of  the  Snow,  217. 

Longfellow,  Henry  Wadsworth, 
childliood  in  the  writings  of, 
219-221. 

Love,  the  figure  of,  in  classic  and 
modern  art,  37. 

Lowell,  James  Russell,  217. 

Loyola,  91. 

Luca  della  Robbia,  the  children 
of,  101. 

Lucretius,  34,  35. 

Lucy  Gray,  3,  148. 

Luther,  Martin,  an  exponent  of 
German  character,  190 ;  his 
treatment  of  childhood,  190. 

Macbeth,  121, 123. 
Madonna,  development  of    the, 
84-87 ;    treatment  of  by  Ra- 


phael, 92-98 ;  a  domestic  sub- 
ject,  98. 

Magnificat,  The,  44,  47. 

Man  of  Law's  Tale,  The,  110. 

Marcius,  118. 

Martial,  34. 

Martin,  Theodore,  translation  by, 
33. 

Mary,  the  Virgin,  legends  con- 
cerning, in  the  Apocryphal 
Gospel.s,  58-GO  ;  her  cliildhood, 
65 ;  her  appearance  in  early 
art,  83  ;  her  motherhood,  84  ; 
her  relation  to  Jesus,  85. 

May  Queen,  The,  222. 

Medea,  The,  cited,  19. 

Menaphon,  117. 

Mercurius,  30. 

Messiah,  Pope's,  133,  134. 

Michelet,  180. 

Midsummer  Aight's Dream,  124. 

Millais,  John  Everett,  179. 

Milton,  John,  quoted,  46;  the 
absence  of  childliood  in,  127, 

128  ;  compared  with  Bunyan, 

129  ;  with  Pope,  133. 
Moses,  42. 

Moth,  Shake.speare's,  118. 
Mozley,  T.  E.,  quoted,  190,  191, 

235. 
Musset,  Alfred  de,  186. 
3fy  Lost  Youth,  221. 

Netherland  family  life,  pictured 
in  the  life  of  our  Lord,  89- 
92. 

New  Testament,  childhood  in 
the,  47-52. 

Nicodemus,  50. 

Niebuhr,  B.  G.,28. 

Norton,  Charles  Eliot,  transla- 
tion by,  78. 

Note-Bouks,  Hawthorne's,  228, 
229. 

Nurse,  the,  in  Greek  life,  14 ;  in 
the  Odyssey,  14,  15. 

Ode  on  the  Morning  of  Christ's 

Xativity,  127,  133. 
Odysseus  and  his  nurse,  1.5. 
Odyssei/,  memorable  incidents  in 

the.  14,  15. 
(Kilij/us     Tyrannus    contrasted 

witli  the  Iliad,  16-18. 
Old  Testament,  childhood  in  the, 

42-46. 


252 


INDEX 


Our  Old  Home,  230. 
Overbeck,  88,  199-201. 

Palmer,  George  Herbert,  as  a 
translator  of  Homer,  28. 

Parkman,  Francis,  226. 

Pater,  Walter,  quoted,  79. 

Patient  Griaelda,  111. 

Paul  and  Virginia,  representa- 
tive of  innocent  childhood, 
180 ;  an  escape  from  the  world, 
181 ;  an  attempt  at  the  pres- 
ervation of  childhood,  183. 

Pel  Lamb,  The,  149. 

Pheidias,  26,  28. 

Pied  Piper,  The,  237. 

Pilgrim^s  Progress,  The,  130- 
133. 

Plato,  references  of,to  childhood, 
22-26  ;  compared  with  artists, 
26  ;  can  be  read  by  children, 
242. 

Pope,  Alexander,  133 ;  compared 
with  Milton,  133,  134;  with 
Shakespeare,  134. 

Prelude,  The,  151. 

Princess,  The,  170. 

Puritanism,  the  attitude  of,  to- 
ward childhood,  128,  129. 

Queen^s  Marie,  the  ballad  of  the, 
106. 

Raphael,  an  exponent  of  the  idea 
of  his  time,  92  ;  the  Madonnas 
of,  92  ;  in  the  Berlin  Museum, 
93 ;  Casa  Connestabile,  93  ;  del 
Cardellino,  93  ;  at  St.  Peters- 
burg, 93  ;  deUa  Casa  Tempi, 
94 ;  at  Bridgewater,  95 ;  del 
Passegio,  9G  ;  San  Sisto,  97,  98  ; 
treatment  by,  of  Amor,  99  ;  his 
children,  100. 

Reaper  and  the  Flowers,  The, 
220,  222. 

Renaissance,  the  spirit  of  the,  in 
Raphael's  work,  98  ;  childhood 
in  its  relation  to  the,  102. 

Republic,  Plato's,  cited,  23. 

Resignation,  220. 

Reynolds,  Sir  Joshua,  141,  142. 

Richter,  Jean  Paul  Friedrich, 
autobiography  of,  191  ;  early 
birth  of  consciousness  in, 
192 ;  compared  with  Goethe, 
194. 


Riverside  Magazine  for  Young 

People,  The,  237,  238. 
Roman  literature,  chUdhood  in, 

31-38. 
Rousseau,    Jean    Jacques,    180, 

182,  184. 
Ruskm,  John,  242. 

Samuel,  42. 

Sanford  and  Merlon,  3. 

Sarah,  tlie  laugh  of,  44. 

Scarlet  Letter,  The,  233,  234. 

Schliemann,  Dr.,  6. 

School,  great  literature  in,  242. 

Sella,  111. 

Sellar,  John  Y.,  quoted,  35. 

Sentiment,  French  and  German, 
as  seen  by  the  English  and 
American,  188. 

Shadow,  A,  220. 

Shakespeare,  childhood  in,  117  ; 
limitations  of  the  exhibition, 
117,  118;  his  Moth,  118;  his 
Coriolanus,  118,119;  his  King 
John,  119,  120;  his  Tiius  An- 
dronieus,  120,  121 ;  his  Mac- 
beth, 121 ;  his  Richard  LLI., 
122  ;  random  passages  in,  re- 
lating to  childhood,  123-125; 
reasons  for  the  scanty  refer- 
ence, 125,  126 ;  compared  witli 
Pope,  134. 

Shunamite,  the,  43. 

Simeon,  47. 

Simonides,  20  ;  quoted,  30. 

Sketches  of  the  History  of  Chris- 
tian Art,  88. 

Smith,  Goldwin,  translation  by, 
20. 

Snow-Bound,  218. 

Snow-Image,  The,  232. 

Solitude,  the,  of  childhood,  160- 
162. 

Songs  of  Innocence,  164. 

Sophocles,  the  CEdipus  Tyran- 
nus  of,  16. 

Sparrows,  the  story  of  the  mi- 
raculous, 61,  62. 

Spectator,  The,  a  writer  in, 
quoted,  38. 

Spenser,  Edmund,  his  Faery 
Queen,  114,  115. 

Statins,  33. 

Story  by  the  Fire,  A,  an  example 
of  what  a  poem  for  a  child 
should  not  be,  222-225. 


INDEX 


253 


Supematiiraltsm  in  ancient  liter- 
ature, 35,  36. 

SHspiria  de  Pro/undis,  158-162. 

SweUenborg,  a  saying  of,  142. 

Syinonds,  John  Addiugton,  trans- 
lation by,  20. 

S.  Bernard,  76,  77. 

S.  Catherine,  65. 

S.  Christina,  70. 

S.  Elizabeth  of  Hungary,  65, 
66. 

S.  Francis  of  Assisi,  71,  72. 

8.  Genevieve,  66. 

8.  Gregory  Nazianzen,  66. 

8.  John  Chrysostom,  66. 

8.  Kenelon,  68-70. 

8t.  Pierre,  Beraardin,  180-183. 

Tanagra  figurines,  28. 

Tangleivood  Tales,  22G. 

Tennyson,  Alfred,  makes  a  hero- 
ine of  the  babe,  170 ;  his  May 
Queen,  222. 

Tliompson,  D'Arcy  W.,  transla- 
tion by,  31,  33. 

Thoreau,  Henry  David,  217. 

Thorwaldseu,  37,  201. 

Tirocinium,  140. 

Tilus  Andronicus,  120,  121. 

To  a  Child,  220. 

Translations,  the  great,  of  the 
Elizabetlian  era,  116. 

Ttvice-Told  Tales,  231. 

Two  Gentlemen  of  Verona, 
VIA. 

Ugly  Duckling,  The,  213  ;  com- 
pared with  The  Snow-Image, 
232. 

Ugolino,  Count,  76. 


Vicar  of  Wakefield,  The,  3,  137- 
140,  142. 

Village  Blacksmith,  The,  221. 

Virgil,  contrasted  with  Homer, 
31,  32 ;  his  treatment  of  child- 
hood, 32. 

Virgilia,  118,  119. 

Volumuia,  118,  119. 

We  are  Seven,  168-224. 

Weariness,  220,  221. 

Whittier,  John  Greenleaf,  child 
hood  In  the  writings  of,  218, 
219. 

Wonder-Book,  Hawthorne's,  226, 
227,  232. 

Wordsworth,  William,  the  cre- 
ator of  Alice  Fell  and  Lucy 
Gray,  3 ;  quoted,  3 ;  tlie  ridi- 
cule of  his  Lyrical  Ballads, 
145 ;  his  defensive  Preface, 
145-147  ;  his  apology  for  Alice 
Fell,  147,  148;  his  poem  of 
Lucy  Gray,  148, 149 ;  his  poem 
of  The  Pel  Lamb,  149,  150; 
his  treatment  of  incidents  of 
childhood,  150;  the  first  to 
treat  the  child  as  an  individ- 
ual, 151  ;  his  draft  on  his  own 
experience,  152  ;  his  poetic  in- 
terpretation of  childhood,  153- 
156 ;  his  ode.  Intimations  of 
Immortality,  156,  157 ;  hia 
treatment  of  death,  168  ;  his 
We  are  Seven  contrasted  with 
A  Story  of  the  Fire,  224,  225. 

Wreck  of  tlie  Hesperus,  The,  221. 

Zarephath,  the  widow  of,  42. 
Zechariah,  quoted,  45. 


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